Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKERin the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Northampton Corporation Bill, Sunderland and South Shields Water Bill,

Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.

Bradford Canal (Abandonment) Bill [Lords],

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Colne Valley Water Bill [Lords], As amended, considered:

Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the Third time.—[The Deputy-Chairman.]

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

Swansea Corporation Bill,

As amended, considered.

Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the Third time.—[The Deputy-Chairman.]

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

London Electric and City and South London Railway Companies,

Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

Grampian Electricity Supply Bill (by Order)—(King's Consent signified),

Bill Read the Third time, and passed.

Norfolk Fisheries Provisional Order Bill, Taw and Torridge Fisheries Provisional Order Bill,

Towy Fisheries Provisional Order Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL,

"to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Minister of Transport under the General Pier and Harbour Act, 1867, relating to Oulton Broad and Portnockie," presented by Mr. NEAL; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 144.]

NEW WRIT.

For the County of Berks (Newbury Division), in the room of Sir WILLIAM ARTHUR MOUNT, baronet (Chiltern Hundreds).—[Colonel Leslie Wilson.]

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

CIVIL SERVICE (APPOINTMENTS).

Colonel Sir C. YATE: 1.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India, considering that the effect of Section 98 and Schedule III of the Government of India Act is to confer not a right but only aspes successionis to the appointments reserved to the Indian Civil Service, and as that expectation might be defeated by the abolition of these appointments, as has, in fact, been proposed by the legislative councils in certain provinces, will the Secretary of State for India consider the desirability of legislation, not only validating the covenant, but reserving to the Indian Civil Service a fixed proportion of appointments above the time scale?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton): I find some difficulty in understanding the exact nature of the legislation which my hon. and gallant Friend desires to suggest, but if his suggestion be that the Secretary of State in Council should deprive himself by law of the power of abolishing or reducing the number of high appointments at present available to members of the Indian Civil Service, however desirable or necessary such a step might be, I fear that is hardly a practicable proposal.

Sir C. YATE: Will the Noble Lord uphold the covenant of the Indian civil servants, or are they to suffer in connection with the Montagu reforms?

Earl WINTERTON: That question does not in the least arise on this question The hon. and gallant Gentleman asks a specific question about certain appointments which I have endeavoured to answer.

PRISONERS (TREATMENT).

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 2.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India, whether he will inquire as to a circular, alleged to have been issued by the inspector-general of prisoners, Bombay, to the effect that political prisoners should be treated as others in regard to food, clothing, work, and communications?

Earl WINTERTON: I will inquire from India whether any such circular was issued; the matter is one in which it is not desirable to interfere with the discretion of the Indian and Local Governments.

Sir C. YATE: If such a circular be issued, will the Noble Lord see that it is enforced, and not whittled down in any way?

Earl WINTERTON: I have already replied that this is a matter which, think, is one that should be left to the Local Government.

Sir J. D. REES: Is there any reason to suppose that this preferential treatment of political prisoners is popular with other than a very small class in India?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 3.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the large number of political prisoners now in gaol and the hot weather now in season, any special steps have been taken to see that prisoners are moved to more temperate gaols, and that the conditions and the punishments in the gaols are not adding to the discomforts of normal prison life in India; and, if he has no information on the subject, will he communicate with India, and in particular with Lahore?

Earl WINTERTON: The Secretary of State is satisfied that all reasonable steps to safeguard the health of prisoners, amongst which, however, he would not include removal from their native climate, are already taken in the normal course by the Government of India, of whom he is not prepared, accordingly, to make the inquiries suggested.

Sir C. YATE: If there be a choice of gaols, will the Noble Lord see that the hottest is given to those who incite to crime?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Burn them alive!

Oral Answers to Questions — IRELAND.

CORK HARBOUR AND BEREHAVEN (DEFENCES).

Colonel NEWMAN: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for War what arrangement has been come to with the Minister of Defence of the Provisional Government of the South of Ireland relative to the defences of Cork Harbour and of Bere-haven?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): The Treaty provided that certain harbour defences, including those of Cork Harbour and Berehaven, should remain in charge of British care and maintenance parties. This provision is being carried out and the parties are now actually garrisoning the forts.

Colonel NEWMAN: Does the right hon. Gentleman say that these defence parties are sufficient to defend these forts from attack?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I hope so.

Lieut.- Colonel ASHLEY: Are they armed?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I have no doubt they are, but I will make further inquiry into it.

DISBANDED SOLDIERS.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the existing conditions in many parts of Ireland, he will grant to married non-commissioned officers and men of the Irish regiments which are being, or are about to be, disbanded, the same consideration as was extended to the Royal Irish Constabulary in the shape of a temporary separation allowance in cases where these individuals cannot at present safely return to their homes in Ireland?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend
to my reply yesterday to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Shettleston Division of Glasgow.

Colonel ASHLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the answer he gave yesterday in no way answers the question I put now to him? What I ask now is why should disbanded soldiers who have to go back to Ireland be treated worse than the Constabulary?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I do not think my hon. and gallant Friend should say that they are treated worse. The answer I gave yesterday was to call attention to the Army Order under which those men get a bonus, and that is, I believe, a sufficient bonus, and as much as can be granted in the Service.

Colonel ASHLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that they get the bonus whether they live in Ireland, Scotland, Wales or elsewhere? What I am asking is why, owing to the conditions in Ireland by which these men cannot go back to their homes, they should not be treated like ex-members of the Royal Irish Constabulary?

Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOARE: Will the right hon. Gentleman look again at the answer he gave yesterday? If he does, he will find that these cases are quite outside the terms of the reference to my Committee. I cannot deal with them at all.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is, I think, not quite right in saying that these cases are outside the terms of reference to his Committee "if" there is financial need. It is because there may be financial need that the hon. and gallant Gentleman, who puts this question, asks for their better treatment—treatment better than is given under the Army Order.

Sir S. HOARE: Ts the right hon. Gentleman aware that under the terms of reference to my Committee I can only deal with refugees who have landed in Great Britain from Ireland? These men are not refugees who have landed in Great Britain from Ireland.

Colonel ASHLEY: Owing to the answer of the right hon. Gentleman, I shall call attention to the matter on the Adjournment to-night.

BRITISH TROOPS, DUBLIN.

Captain Viscount CURZON: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether any British regiment is now in the Dublin area; if so, whether any casualties have occurred recently; whether the troops are allowed out of barracks; and for what purpose they are required?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The answer to the first and third parts of the question is in the affirmative. In regard to the second part, I regret that a gunner of the Royal Artillery was killed on the 12th May, and a non-commissioned officer of the Royal Army Service Corps on the 27th May. In regard to the last part, the troops are required for reasons of policy which cannot be dealt with within the limits of a Parliamentary answer.

Viscount CURZON: What steps are taken to safeguard the lives of these men in Dublin, as every time they are compelled to go out of barracks they are in danger of their lives—of being shot at?

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: Does the figure given by the right hon. Gentleman include the casualties or merely the killed?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No, these two lost their lives.

Viscount CURZON: Can I have an answer to my question?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The hon. and gallant. Gentleman asks what precautions are taken?

Viscount CURZON: Yes.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No special precautions can be taken—

Viscount CURZON: Why not?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Subject to this, that, of course, the troops could be confined to barracks; but that is not a possible condition for any length of time.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Will the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies deal with this question when he makes his statement to-day or to-morrow as to why troops are still retained in Dublin? That has not yet been answered by the Government.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Churchill): Yes, I will endeavour to point out why it is necessary to keep them in Dublin.

Sir J. G. BUTCHER: Will the right hon. Gentleman give directions that these soldiers shall not be allowed out of barracks without having arms to protect them against these savages?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I am not going to interfere with the discretion of the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief in Ireland. He is very well aware of the conditions and makes the. arrangements he considers necessary.

Mr. GWYNNE: Are these troops kept in Dublin at the request of the Provisional Government, or against their wish?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir; they are not kept in Dublin at the present time at the request of the Provisional Government, but because the process of evacuation has been temporarily suspended.

KIDNAPPED BRITISH OFFICERS.

Viscount CURZON: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there is any further news of the three officers and one man captured at Macroom; whether there is still any hope of their being alive; and whether His Majesty's Government or the Provisional Government are still taking any steps to avenge these officers or to ascertain their fate?

Mr. CHURCHILL: As I stated yesterday in reply to a question by the hon. and gallant Member for Burton, I regret that I have no further information on this subject. I am sorry, however, to say that the military authorities no longer feel able to hold out any hope that these men are still alive, and have so informed the relatives.

Viscount CURZON: Is it true, as stated in the papers, that these three officers and one man who were captured were dragged into Macroom Castle, and have not been heard of since?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not know.

Colonel NEWMAN: Who is in possession of Macroom Castle now?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I must ask for notice of that Question.

MALICIOUS INJURY CLAIMS.

Sir JOHN BUTCHER: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in case of awards made in defended cases for compensation for malicious injuries to property sustained between 21st January, 1919, and 11th July, 1921, Lord Shaw's Commission has any jurisdiction to consider such cases; and how soon the compensation awarded in such cases will be paid?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative. In reply to the second part, application for payment in such cases should be made to the Provisional Government.

Sir J. BUTCHER: In view of the fact that there is no chance of anything being done immediately, will the Government pay the long overdue claims, or a portion of them, and charge it to the Provisional Government later on?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not think that we can well assume that there is no chance of the Provisional Government paying, but we certainly shall not pay over the last sums which will be due until we are satisfied that a similar rate of payment is being made by the Provisional Government.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Will the right hon. Gentleman pay these people something on account as many of them are in great distress?

OUTRAGES.

Colonel GRETTON: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that General Doran, an ex-member of His Majesty's forces, was on 22nd May arrested at Rosslare by the forces of the Provisional Government, assaulted, beaten, detained for some time without any charge being preferred, and only released by the action of the local demobilised soldiers; whether his attention has also been drawn to the fact that General Higginson was on 24th May severely wounded by revolver shots at Tipperary, and that on 22nd May, Patrick Gilligan, an ex-soldier, was murdered at Newport, County Tipperary; will he state how many officers, ex-officers, soldiers and ex-soldiers of His Majesty's army have been murdered in Ireland since the signing of the Treaty
with the Sinn Fein representatives, and in how many cases criminals have been brought to justice; and whether His Majesty's Government will offer facilities to enable ex-members of His Majesty's army to emigrate from Southern Ireland to the Colonies?

Mr. CHURCHILL: My attention has been drawn to the outrages referred to in the first part of the question. I have no authentic information in regard to the arrest of General Doran except that it was not committed by the forces of the Provisional Government as stated by the hon. and gallant Member. I am informed that every effort is being made to trace and punish the perpetrators of the attempted murder of General Higginson and the murderers of Patrick Gilligan, but that no arrests have yet been made in either case. The number of officers murdered in Ireland since the Treaty is four, of ex-officers six, of soldiers three, and of ex-soldiers three. Whilst His Majesty's Government note that these dastardly murders and attempts upon the lives of British soldiers are denounced on behalf of the Provisional Government and others, the melancholy fact remains that no persons have been brought to justice for these crimes. Whether some such action as that suggested in the final part of this question will become necessary depends upon the course that events take.

Viscount CURZON: Will the right hon. Gentleman give some indication of the source of information that enables him to contradict this statement? Does it come from the Provisional Government or from the military authorities in Ireland?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I must ascertain that.

Sir A. SHIRLEY BENN: Was not General Doran arrested by the police under the Provisional Government with assistance, and did not Mr. Michael Collins undertake to have an inquiry made? Has that inquiry been carried out?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The information which I have been able to obtain is that no inquiry has yet been held.

Colonel GRETTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman as far as possible see that ex-soldiers are given facilities to leave Ireland? Is he aware that in many cases
they are subject to assaults, if not actually in danger of being murdered?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I think that in my statement to-morrow I shall be able to put the House in possession of the general situation in relation to these men.

Colonel ASHLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are several thousands of ex-soldiers already dumped clown in Ireland, and when he makes his statement will he say whether the Government cannot do something to enable them to reside out of Ireland, at any rate for the time being?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not aware that the ex-soldiers are in any special danger in Ireland any more than the other persons who have been associated in one form or another with the Government service, or with the Unionist party in Ireland. No doubt they are all in some danger at the present time, but I do not think that the soldiers about to be disbanded in the Irish regiments will be in any more danger than other ex-soldiers and many scores of others in Ireland and various other classes and they stand in a different position from the Royal Trish Constabulary who have been serving for many years with definite duties as police and police control in all parts of Ireland. Consequently, they have an entirely different character of service to their record as compared with the soldiers who have been sent on overseas service. There is a great distinction between the two and it would be impossible for me to deal with all ex-soldiers in Ireland, or those who may subsequently return to Ireland, upon the basis arranged with the Royal Irish Constabulary.

ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY.

Sir JOHN BUTCHER: 53.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that pensioners of the Royal Irish Constabulary are having compulsory deductions made from their pensions in respect of claims for Income Tax for the year 1919–20, which have not been properly assessed and which are disputed, and in some cases where an appeal is pending from the assessment; and whether, in view of the great hardship on the pensioners of these compulsory deductions, which may turn out to be unjustified, he will give directions that
no deductions shall be made from their pensions until the Income Tax has been finally and properly assessed?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Sir Robert Horne): My hon. and learned Friend has furnished me with particulars of the case to which his question relates. I am causing inquiry to be made into the matter and will communicate the result to him in due course.

Sir J. BUTCHER: 75.
asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware that many ex-members of the Royal Irish Constabulary residing in Ireland who were retired from the force in the usual way prior to, and in some cases years before, the recent disbandment, have Keen ordered under threats to leave their homes in the same way as men who have been recently disbanded, and that the sole ground for this action is that the men at one time served in the Royal Irish Constabulary; and whether the Government will take steps to render financial assistance in such cases, and to whom such men should apply?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I regret that there have been some instances of intimidation of this kind. His Majesty's Government, however, cannot see their way to regard these cases as different from those of other civilians compelled in present circumstances to leave Ireland; and any pensioner who has come to this country and is in need of assistance should apply to the Committee presided over by the hon. and gallant Member for Chelsea.

EXISTING SITUATION.

Colonel GRETTON: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of Sate for the Colonies if he will make a statement to-day on the position of affairs in Ireland?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I hope to do so to morrow.

Colonel GRETTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman give a definite undertaking to make a statement to-morrow before the House rises?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Will there be an opportunity of taking a vote on the statement?

Mr. CHURCHILL: My hon. and learned Friend has been too long a Member of the House not to know exactly what is the Parliamentary procedure on the Motion for the Adjournment.

Sir J. BUTCHER: The right hon. Gentleman has told us that we shall have a Debate. What is the good of the Debate without taking a vote?

LONDONDERRY (SINN FEIN TROOPS).

Colonel ASHLEY: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can give the House any information as to the invasion of Ulster territory from the South and West, and what steps have been taken by the British troops to disperse and drive out the invaders?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I cannot add anything to the answer I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Bradford (Major Boyd-Carpenter) yesterday, and the answers to questions arising out of it. I do not think that anything in the nature of invasion has taken place.

Colonel ASHLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the public Press is full of the fact that Pettigo and Belleek, two villages in Ulster territory, have been invaded, and are held now by Free State troops or I.R.A. troops? I want to know what the Government are doing with the British troops. They say they have 19 battalions with which to drive out the invaders and safeguard Ulster.

Mr. CHURCHILL: That is what I said yesterday. Had I any further information on the subject, I should certainly give it to the House.

Colonel ASHLEY: Owing to the most unsatisfactory answer of the right hon. Gentleman, I beg to ask your leave, Mr. Speaker, to move the Adjournment of the House to draw attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the confessed and avowed failure and refusal of the Government to use British troops to defend Ulster.

Mr. CHURCHILL: On a point of Order. I venture to submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the expressions "the confessed and avowed failure and refusal of the Government to use British troops in
the defence of Ulster" are an entire misrepresentation and travesty of what I said.

Mr. SPEAKER: I must leave the hon. and gallant: Member (Colonel Ashley) to bring this matter forward at the end of Questions. There are other questions to be put. He will recollect, however, that the initiative lies with the Government of Northern Ireland. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I do not know whether he has information that application has been made by the Government of Northern Ireland and not assented to by the War Office, or the General in Command of the British troops. That seems to be the proper way of dealing with the matter. We were informed yesterday that any request made by the Government of Northern Ireland would be promptly conceded.

Colonel ASHLEY: Under whose orders, Mr. Speaker, are the troops in Ulster? Are they not under the Government of the United Kingdom? Are they not paid by this House? Yet we have just heard the Secretary of State for the Colonies say that he is going to do nothing to defend Ulster. He refuses to do anything. That is a matter of which this House should take cognisance.

Mr. CHURCHILL: On the point of Order. May I be permitted to say that I said nothing of the kind. I said the exact contrary. I said that the officers commanding the army in Ulster had been instructed to give all possible aid to the Northern Government in the defence of northern territory. The statement which my hon. and gallant Friend has repeated the second time is diametrically a reversal of the actual words which I used in the presence of the House.

Colonel ASHLEY: Has a Minister of the Crown any right to shuffle off his responsibility to somebody else when he is put in charge of Northern Ireland by this House and by the Government?

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: On the same point of Order—

Mr. SPEAKER: I will deal with this point first. This House has entrusted this business to the Government of Northern Ireland in the first instance.
We have British troops there, and they are available when asked for by the civil Government.

Mr. McNEILL: I would respectfully remind you of the words used by the right hon. Gentleman yesterday when he said that certain military steps which might become necessary for the defence of Ulster could not be taken without reference to the Cabinet here.

Mr. SPEAKER: That was a very different question. That was a question of these troops going over the border.

Mr. McNEILL: On that point, I submit that it is really the same point as that which has been put by my hon. and gallant Friend. It is really a question of what the military authorities there might consider the best step for the protection of the border, and it might very well be from the military point of view that to go over the border was the only means of defence. The right hon. Gentleman stated definitely yesterday that no such steps could be taken at the instance of the Government of Northern Ireland, or with their authority, without reference to the Cabinet here.

Mr. J. JONES: On a point of Order. May I ask you, as an Irishman, whether the time has not arrived for making some arrangement to abolish all borders in Ireland?

Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise. We all wish it were possible.

At the end of Questions—

Colonel ASHLEY: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House in order to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, "the failure of the Government to give authority to the military authorities to defend Ulster territory by any means in their power."

Mr. SPEAKER: That, as I before indicated, is not a Motion that I can accept under Standing Order Number 10. It would subvert the constitution of the Government of Northern Ireland, a thing that is hardly desirable under Standing Order No. 10. I may say, however, that I propose to give the question of Ireland first place in the discussion on the Adjournment Motion to-morrow.

Colonel ASHLEY: Without questioning your ruling in the slightest, may I ask you how the House is going to carry on, as apparently the troops in Ireland have two masters. They have the masters here and the masters in Ireland. If they get contradictory orders, what will happen?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member knows the position as well as anybody. The military authority acts at the request of the civil authority, and, that request having been made, the military commander is the authority which decides the means.

Mr. GWYNNE: If this House be responsible for the pay of the military, how can it be precluded from discussing a situation in which our troops are engaged, because if a discussion be out of order merely because it happens in Ireland, it would equally exclude all discussion if some disaster happened to us in Ireland?

Mr. J. JONES: May I be allowed to ask what is the constitutional position? Have we not established two Parliaments in Ireland, and have they not control of Ireland? If they cannot settle their differences, why should we be asked to send troops to settle their differences for them?

Sir F. BANBURY: Supposing the civil authorities in Ireland give certain orders to the troops and supposing that this House thinks that those orders ought not to be given to troops who are under their supervision and whom they pay, is this House to have no opportunity of expressing its opinion?

Mr. CHURCHILL: In view of what my right hon. Friend has said, may I say that the British troops in Ulster are not under the orders of the Northern Government any more than the troops in Liverpool are under the orders of the Lord Mayor of Liverpool. But, if the Northern Government applies for the aid of troops in support of the civil power, that aid will be given, and the troops then, as you have said, will be under the orders of the military authority, who will assume control of that particular event and deal with it as they deem fit, and for that purpose will act, not only not under the orders of the Provisional Government, but under the orders of the Imperial Government.

Sir F. BANBURY: I am much obliged to my right hon. Friend for answering my point of order. Why are we to be precluded from moving the Adjournment to consider the conduct of troops whom the right hon. Gentleman has just said are under the control of this Parliament?

Mr. SPEAKER: The Motion is not to raise something that the troops have done, but something that the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Ashley) would like them to do, which is very different. That is the ground on which I rule that the Motion does not come under Standing Order No. 10.

MUNITION FACTORIES.

Mr. GWYNNE: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonics if ho is aware that there are several munition factories in Ireland, that these factories are in full work, and if he will inquire of the Provisional Government for what object these munition factories are producing munitions of war?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I should be obliged if my hon. Friend would put mc in possession of the data on which his question is based?

Mr. GWYNNE: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire from the Provisional Government why these munitions are being made? He has facilities for seeing representatives of the Provisional Government of Ireland and conferring with them. I gave notice of this question last night. Will he make it his business to inquire into the matter? It is a very important matter.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I would ask my hon. Friend that I should have the advantage of which he is possessed before I embark upon further inquiries.

Mr. GYWNNE: Is it a new policy of the Government that hon. Members have got to give a Minister details, instead of the Government giving them information? I have got information, which I suggest is true, and I want him if ho can to deny it.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have had certain information, I would like to add to that the information of my hon. Friend, which I am certain he will place at the disposal of the public.

Mr. J. JONES: Why are the people of Northern Ireland being provided with munitions by the Government of this country while they are denied to people in the South?

Mr. GWYNNE: Has the right hon. Gentleman pressed the Provisional Government, since he has had my question, to give definite information on this matter?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member knows that he brought the question to me, and I think it is the least that can be asked of him that he should offer his information.

Sir J. BUTCHER: On a point of Order. Is it not the business of Ministers to give information to the House rather than to expect to receive it? And is not this a perfectly legitimate question, the answer to which the right hon. Gentleman can get from some of the members of the Provisional Government who are over here?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The question is one of which I only got notice about half-an-hour before I came to the House. I have some knowledge of what is being done in this respect, but I am not in a position to make a full statement on the subject. It must be clearly understood that if munition factories are working in Dublin the Provisional Government are within their rights under the existing legislation in so doing, but I agree that the manufacture of munitions or the importation of munitions upon a great scale would be a matter which would have most seriously to be considered. If my hon. Friend has information of a graver kind than I have to put at my disposal he should put it at the service of the Government.

Mr. GWYNNE: I am willing to give any information which I have to the right hon. Gentleman, but he must know that any information which I have might lead to the murder of people who gave this information as the Government have failed to give any protection to anybody over there who gives information.

Colonel GRETTON: Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman has information that certain munition factories are working in Ireland?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, I have information, but nothing I have heard leads me to suppose that anything is going forward on a great or formidable scale. Up
to the present we have trusted to the Provisional Government to maintain order in Southern Ireland, and we have been enabling them to secure a certain amount of equipment and munitions which could be used for that purpose. That is the position up to the present. It may be that a new position will supervene, and when it does I must inform the House.

Mr. R. McNEILL: Now that the Provisional Government are manufacturing their own munitions of war, is the right hon. Gentleman suspending supplying thorn with munitions of war on this side?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes. I have suspended all supplies from the date of the Collins—de Valera Agreement.

Sir F. BANBURY: Why are the Provisional Government allowed to manufacture munitions, and what does the eight hon. Gentleman consider to be a reasonable scale?

Mr. CHURCHILL: We are obviously approaching one of these recurrent crises in the Irish situation with which this House is familiar. I will make a statement to the House to-morrow on the subject. I would far rather that it should be considered by the House then than by these fragmentary questions and answers.

PROVISIONAL PARLIAMENT, SOUTHERN IRELAND.

Mr. RAWLINSON: (by Private Notice) asked the Colonial Secretary under what Clause of the Treaty, or by what authority, has the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in yesterday's "Gazette" dissolved the Parliament of Southern Ireland and called a Parliament to be known as the Provisional Parliament, to which the Provisional Government are to be responsible, and how are the members of this new Provisional Parliament to be chosen or elected, and whether this new Parliament is to meet in July?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The Parliament of Southern Ireland was dissolved, and the Parliament to which the Provisional Government is to be responsible was summoned, under the authority of Subsection (2) of Section I of the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act, 1922. This Subsection directs the necessary steps to be taken for holding, in accordance with the law now in force with respect to the
franchise, numbers of members, and method of election and holding of elections to the Parliament of Southern Ireland, an election of members for the constituencies which would have been entitled to elect Members to that Parliament. The reply to the last part of the question is in the affirmative. I may add that I shall be dwelling on this subject in the course of my remarks to-morrow.

Mr. RAWLINSON: I only wanted to know how the members would be elected on the 1st July.

Colonel GRETTON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it was the duty of the Provisional Government to dissolve the Parliament in Dublin, or whether it was the duty of the Lord Lieutenant, because he will observe that the Proclamation issued by the Provisional Government preceded by a considerable number of hours the special Proclamation issued in the "Gazette" by the Lord Lieutenant.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, that was due to an accident, but the intention was that the Lord Lieutenant's Proclamation and the Proclamation by the Ministers of the Provisional Government should be simultaneous. I may point out that the only authority which can give any validity to this election or any validity to the Writs, or to any proceedings by any Parliament returned is the authority of the Crown as signified by the Lord Lieutenant.

ARMY OFFICERS (COMPULSORY RETIREMENT).

Lieut.-Colonel HILDER: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he will consider the advisability in the case of junior officers retired under the scheme of Army reduction being given a step in rank on being placed in the reserve, as this would, in their being called upon, in case of emergency in the near future for active service, provide that they would have the seniority which their present degree of war experience would warrant?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Officers retired under the scheme of Army reductions will be granted such rank in the reserve as they are eligible for under Army Order 376 of 1918, which was
framed to grant to officers the rank which their degree of war experience warranted.

CROWN COLONIES (LOANS).

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Colonial Office and the Treasury consider themselves bound by a statement of the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain to the effect that, guarantee or no, this country could not allow any Crown Colony to default in interest on their loans; and, if so, will they see that a definite guarantee is given in future so as to raise the money more cheaply?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have not been able to trace the statement to which the hon. and gallant Member refers. I see no reason to anticipate that any Crown Colony will default in the interest on any of its loans, and I doubt whether it is either practicable or desirable to discuss what steps should or could be taken in so remote and improbable a contingency. In answer to the last part of the question, I am not prepared to urge my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ask Parliament for a general authority to give a British Government guarantee for Crown Colony loans.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: As this question is still in doubt, when the next loan takes place would it not be better that we should have a definite liability under which we should get the money more cheaply rather than have a very indefinite liability, which may be ultimately put upon us as a debt of honour?

Mr. CHURCHILL: This practice is not a new one. When these loans are issued, the prospectus clearly states upon its face that the British Government are not responsible either for the principle or interest and I cannot see what further steps or measures are called for. We have been very successful in raising these loans for the Colonies under the existing system with full notice to the investing public. The money raised by these loans has been largely spent. upon labour in this country and relieving unemployment. I understand that the hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes by the series of questions he is asking really to endanger the raising of these loans and so prevent them from employing British labour.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: No. I want them to get money as cheaply as possible.

IRAQ (BUDGET).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give the House any information on the financial position of the Government of Iraq; whether the budget is expected to balance this year; if not, whether any grant in aid will be made by the Imperial Government; and whether the cost of the armed forces stationed in Iraq is included in the budget?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The detailed Estimates for the current financial year have not yet been received from the Iraq Government, but I am assured that every effort is being made to balance the Budget. Should the expenditure, however, exceed the revenue this year, no grant in aid will be made from Imperial funds. The whole cost of the Iraq Army is borne by local revenues; the cost of the Imperial garrison and the cost of the Iraq levies are a charge upon Imperial funds.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Does the right hon. Gentleman expect that in the near future the whole of the forces in Iraq will be chargeable to the local Government?

Mr. CHURCHILL: No.

Mr. MILLS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether that grave political crisis of which he informed us a few weeks ago is now at an end?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir. It has been happily ended and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has resumed his function.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is there no possibility of the troops being a first charge upon the local revenue?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I made a lengthy statement on that subject the other day, and I then indicated the sort of cost we should have to look forward to in future years. The House debated the matter for a whole afternoon, and it is impossible for me to improve upon that statement in answer to a question.

Sir C. YATE: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what is the approximate strength of the Iraq levies?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of that question.

CONCESSIONS, PALESTINE (Mr. RUTENBERG).

Mr. MALONE: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will issue as a. White Paper particulars of the concessions in Palestine granted to Mr. Pinhas M. Rutenberg?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not think it necessary to incur the expense of reprinting the agreements with Mr. Rutenberg, but I will place copies in the Library.

Mr. MALONE: Does the right hon. Gentleman not see the desirability of giving the House the fullest particulars of this concession in view of the very malicious opposition organised in certain anti-Semitic centres?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I think that hon. Members who wish to study this matter will have an opportunity in the Library of reading the details. It is rather a serious business to embark upon the widespread printing of these long and complicated documents, but if the interest of hon. Members in them is so great, I will have them printed.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Will the Paper placed in the Library make it clear that the terms of this concession were negotiated between Mr. Rutenberg and the Colonial Office, and what terms the Colonial Office has specifically agreed to and for which they are responsible?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am quite ready to face this matter if there be any necessity to do so.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Has the right hon. Gentleman read the attack made upon this contract in the "Daily Mail"?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I read nothing but attacks upon everything in the "Daily Mail."

LIQUOR TRAFFIC (STATE MANAGEMENT).

Colonel Sir A. HOLBROOK: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the authority under which he has appointed the State Management Districts Council as the body responsible for accounting to the State for the public money provided in the Estimates for expenditure in respect of the State management districts?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): The authority under which the arrangements explained to the hon. and gallant Member in my answer of the 16th May have been made is the authority vested in my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland and myself for carrying on the public services for which we are responsible as Ministers of the Crown.

NATURALISATION (MR. B. WEINBERG).

Mr. KILEY: 16.
asked the Home Secretary whether he received in July, 1919, from Mr. B. Weinberg, Editor of the "Jewish Family Friend," an application for naturalisation; and, if so, can he give the grounds for the refusal to make efficient arrangements for dealing with applications for naturalisation from individuals of the highest reputation, especially those who are married to British subjects and have families born in this country?

Mr. SHORTT: An application was received in July, 1919, from Barnet Weinberg, who described himself as a printer of 103, Petherton Road, Highbury. This is, I expect, the application to which the hon. Member refers. As regards the second part of the question, I cannot accept the suggestion that I have refused to make efficient arrangements for dealing with applications for naturalisation, and I have nothing to add to various previous answers which I have given the hon. Member on this subject.

Mr. KILEY: As there are some hundreds of these applications which have extended over many years surely there must be some lack of efficiency, otherwise these claims would have been dealt with and either dismissed or allowed?

Mr. SHORTT: No, Sir, there is no lack of efficiency, but if the House would allow me to treble the staff of this particular branch of my Department we could deal with the cases more quickly.

Mr. KILEY: Seeing you now charge a fee of ten guineas, why not increase the fee and enlarge the staff?

VISAS AND PASSPORTS.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 18.
asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to Article 16 of the recommendations of the Third Commission (Economic) at Genoa relating to visas and passports; and what steps he proposes to take to carry out the advice contained therein?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): The answer will be found in my reply to a similar question put to me on the 24th instant by the hon. Member for Acton.

TIPTON AMMUNITION FACTORY (EXPLOSION).

Mr. MALONE: 19.
asked the Home Secretary when the Report of the Tipton ammunition factory explosion disaster will be published?

Mr. SHORTT: I am informed that an interim report has been drawn up, and I expect to receive it to-day.

MILK GRANTS, SCOTLAND.

Mr. KENNEDY: 20.
asked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that the Scottish Board of Health has issued a circular intimating that it is proposed to reduce the grant for milk and meals for nursing and expectant mothers and infants forthwith, involving a. reduction from £100,000 to £9,000; whether he is aware that, in consequence, the Glasgow City Council has had to curtail its services, and that 13,000 children have been deprived of a pint of milk daily and 7,000 of a dinner; and whether, in view of the present distress due to unemployment, the circular will be withdrawn?

Mr. PRATT (Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health, Scotland): A circular has been issued intimating that the grant in aid of expenditure on food and milk provided under Maternity Service and Child Welfare Schemes has been limited for the current year to £6,000. I am sending a copy of the circular to the hon. Member. I understand that the town council of Glasgow has decided, in view of the limitation of the grant in aid, to restrict their scheme to the supply of milk to bottle-fed babies and meals to mothers, and that milk supplies from the council to children have ceased in, approximately, 11,000 cases, and meals in 6,000 cases. Having regard to the real objects of Maternity and Child Welfare Schemes, and to the fact that parish councils have received special statutory powers to deal with distress arising from unemployment, I cannot entertain the suggestion in the last part of the question.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

COUNTER LOSSES.

Mr. AMMON: 22.
asked the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to the case of a counter clerk and telegraphist at Gracechurch Street branch office, who was called upon to make good the loss of £8 through paying out a stolen money order; and whether he will inquire further into the subject on the grounds that risk allowance is intended to cover only ordinary mistakes and not cases of fraud?

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): I am acquainted with the case to which the hon. Member refers. The officer in question, who holds a risk allowance, was called upon to make good the loss because he failed to observe the rules relating to the payment of money orders. This is the normal practice in the case of holders of risk allowances.

Mr. AMMON: The question as to whether the risk allowance is intended to cover cases of fraud has not been answered. The Regulation specifically refers to the particular duties of the officer.

Mr. PEASE: There is no question of fraud in this case. The officer concerned accepted an irregular signature. He has
the risk allowance, and although I sympathise with him, I do not see it was possible for the Department to have done anything else.

LONDON AND PARIS WIRELESS SERVICE.

Mr. KENNEDY: 23.
asked the Postmaster-General whether the temporary permission which was granted to the Marconi Company to conduct a wireless telegraph service between London and Paris has been confirmed by the grant of a permanent licence; and whether, having regard to the prejudicial effect of the Marconi Company's service upon the State cable service and to the appreciable loss of revenue, he will, in accordance with his promise, cause the agreement to be laid before Parliament at the earliest possible moment?

Mr. PEASE: No formal licence has yet been issued. The question of the conditions under which a permanent licence should be granted is still the subject of negotiation. In the event of an agreement being reached, its terms will be laid before Parliament in accordance with the promise given. The Marconi Company's service has probably withdrawn a certain amount of traffic from the cable service, but the loss of revenue involved is not appreciable.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Is it not suggested that the service would be a great saving to the public who wish to telegraph, whatever it may be to the State?

Mr. PEASE: I must ask for notice of that question.

OUTER LONDON LETTER DELIVERIES.

Mr. AMMON: 24.
asked the Postmaster-General by how many the establishment will be reduced when the proposals to abolish the 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. deliveries and institute a 3.30 p.m. delivery in the outer London districts is fully in operation; and whether full consideration has been given to the possible increase of business consequent upon the reduction of postal rates?

Mr. MILLS: 27.
asked the Postmaster-General whether it is proposed to abolish the 6 p.m. delivery in the London suburbs; and, if so, what steps have been taken to ascertain the mind of the public with regard to such proposed reduction of postal facilities?

Mr. PEASE: It. is proposed to replace two deliveries commencing at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. respectively by a single delivery at 3.30 p.m. in the London sub-districts. The general effect will be that about 100,000 of the letters which fall into the existing 6 p.m. delivery will be delivered earlier than at present and within business hours. About 200,000 will be delivered two hours later, but as these letters are not delivered within business hours I do not think the delay is likely to cause any appreciable inconvenience. The reduction in the establishment is estimated at about 300 postmen, and there will be a saving of about £50,000 per annum. The increase of business would not affect the desirability of change.

Mr. MILLS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the experience of the last 12 months has proved that an economy to the extent of £1,000 in his Department means a national waste to the extent of hundreds of thousands in the case of the ordinary channels of trade.

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter for debate.

FOREIGN SAMPLES.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 25.
asked the Postmaster-General why sample packages, marked "No Value," which are accepted by foreign countries for delivery in the United Kingdom are being detained by the British postal authorities and a charge is made on the ground that the samples enclosed are of value though, on protest being made, the overcharge is generally refunded; and whether he will, with a view to avoiding these annoyances, make some international arrangement as to limitations or definitions?

Mr. PEASE: By the Regulations of the International Postal Union a sample of merchandise may not be sent at the reduced sample rate of postage if it has a saleable value. In many foreign countries articles of saleable value are from time to time irregularly marked "No Value" and accepted for transmission at the reduced rate. When such a packet is detected in the British Service the appropriate charge is raised upon it as provided by the Postal Union Convention. Charges so levied are only refunded in special cases in which the addressee furnishes proof that the contents of the packet are not actually of saleable value,
although they appear to be. I have no power to vary the arrangement made by the International Convention, the provisions of which on this point are clear. The remedy for the annoyance to which the hon. Member refers lies in strict observance of the Regulations by the senders of sample packets.

Colonel NEWMAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman have these Regulations posted in a conspicuous place in our post offices?

Mr. PEASE: I will suggest that.

TELEPHONE SERVICE.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 28.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he realises that many telephone subscribers are sceptical as to the record of calls accredited to them at their respective exchanges; and whether he is able to report to the House the opinion of the Post Office as to the possibility of installing in the near future in each exchange an effective automatic recorder?

Mr. PEASE: Complaints of overcharging are diminishing as subscribers, formerly on the unlimited service rate, realise the extent of their use of the telephone. No satisfactory automatic record has yet been devised either in this country or abroad.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Has the Post Office ever thought of offering a reward for a satisfactory automatic recorder? It might encourage inventors.

Mr. PEASE: I have seen such an apparatus as that to which my hon. Friend refers, but it is not considered satisfactory by the Post Office. I will note what the hon. Gentleman has said with regard to offering a prize.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that negotiations are now proceeding with the Post Office in regard to an automatic recorder? What view has the Postmaster-General expressed on the subject?

Mr. PEASE: The opinion of the Post Office is that up to the present no proper apparatus has been found.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: How many complaints are there? Is it a diminishing number?

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

APPEAL (J. MELIA).

Mr. HALLS: 29.
asked the Minister of Pensions why in the case of John Melia, of Heywood, whose appeal was allowed by the House of Lords Tribunal, the amount of £24 3s. 8d. was deducted, an amount that he had received in weekly payments under a previous award; and why no allowance was paid for the nine months that transpired between his allowance being cut off and his case coming before the House of Lords Tribunal, which body allowed his appeal?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Major Tryon): The question referred to the Tribunal was whether aggravation of the disability by service had passed away, and that being decided in the man's favour, an appropriate award of a final weekly allowance was made. Awards of this nature are made where the disablement is less than 20 per cent. and are of a limited aggregate amount. It was, therefore, necessary to take into account the amount paid under the earlier award for which the current award was substituted. I may add that the man has gained substantially by the success of his appeal.

Mr. HALLS: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman explain how they would have recovered the £24 3s. 8d. if the man had lost his appeal at the House of Lords Tribunal?

Major TRYON: The position is that when a disability is under 20 per cent. the man gets a final award in a series of weekly payments which come to an end, but the man is not entitled to two sets of weekly payments, as suggested by my hon. Friend.

Mr. HALLS: Does not the hon. and gallant Gentleman see that an award was made that this man should receive 104 weeks' benefit at a certain rate, which amounts to a given sum, and that it is proposed to take £24 3s. 8d. from it?

Major TRYON: I think that perhaps I did not make the matter quite clear. When a man is given a final payment, that is a payment which is obviously intended to close the case; he cannot have two final payments.

ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY (J. WALKER).

Mr. KENNEDY: 30.
asked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware that Corporal Shoeing-Smith John Walker, No. 7426, Royal Field Artillery, has had his claim to pension disallowed although the symptoms of his disability were found by the medical board to be consistent with the after-effects of an attack of sunstroke; whether an endeavour was made to secure the whole of the available evidence bearing on this case; if he is satisfied that the written evidence of J. Spencer, which appears to have influenced the decision of the Ministry, was a genuine production, in view of the fact that Spencer is illiterate; and whether in such cases he will recommend to medical boards that the whole onus of proof as to the origin of disability and responsibility for the production and preservation of medical records shall not lie with claimants to pension?

Major TRYON: As the decision of the Pensions Appeal Tribunal is by law final, my right hon. Friend regrets that the case cannot be reviewed.

Mr. KENNEDY: Is it the case that the terms of the Royal Warrant do place the onus on the man of proving the origin of his disability?

Major TRYON: It is obvious that no payment can be made from public funds unless the claimant has satisfied us as to his right to receive money from the taxpayer; but it is our duty to assist the man in every way in presenting his case.

ROYAL ENGINEERS (F. ALSOPP).

Mr. AMMON: 31.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether his attention has been called to the case of the late Sapper F. Alsopp, late, of the Royal Engineers, who was enlisted as A 1 and sent to Mesopotamia and was afterwards demobilised suffering from ill-health; that within a few weeks after his return to this country he was certified as suffering from disseminated sclerosis, from which he has since died; and will he state on what grounds all pension liability was denied to the man and now to the widow?

Major TRYON: The Ministry decided that the disability in respect of which the late soldier claimed pension was unconnected with service, and that decision was confirmed on appeal by the Pensions Appeal Tribunal. No claim by the widow has so far reached the Ministry, but it is
understood that one will shortly be sent in, when the matter will receive full consideration.

Mr. AMMON: Is not the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that this man got progressively worse ever since he was discharged from the Army, and how long are the Ministry of Pensions going to shield themselves and rob these people, behind the tribunal?

Major TRYON: The hon. Gentleman must be aware, as a Member of this House, that the House decided that any case in which the Ministry held that the man's claim was not justified should be decided, not by us, but by an independent tribunal. That independent tribunal has decided that we are right, and the hon. Member is not justified in the charge that he makes.

WIDOW'S PENSION (MRS. W. R. MUNRO).

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: 32.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware that Mrs. Munro, widow of the late William Ross Munro, private, No. 11,874, 5th Dragoon Guards, has been refused a pension in respect of her late husband; that the grounds of this refusal are that her late husband was removed from duty prior to the date of marriage; that her husband returned to duty at Dunbar depot and served there for six months after their marriage; that she drew wife's separation allowance for this period; that later, when he was placed on pension, she was recognised as his wife by his having the statutory allowance of £1 for himself, 5s. for his wife, and 3s. 9d. for one child, making a total of £1 8s. 9d., which is the correct amount, and allowances for a 50 per cent, pension; that the decision of the Pensions Appeal Tribunal makes it appear that, while Mrs. Munro is accepted as the wife of a serving soldier and pensioner, she is not to he accepted as the widow; and that Munro was married on 2nd July, 1915, and his discharge from the Army is dated 6th January, 1916; and whether, in view of these facts, he will have this case reviewed?

Major TRYON: The late soldier was removed from duty, prior to the date of his marriage, for a disability which resulted in his death, and I regret, therefore, that his widow is not eligible for an award of pension.

Mr. MACLEAN: Has the hon. and gallant Gentleman taken into account the last part of the question, which says that Munro was married on 2nd July, 1915, and his discharge certificate is dated 6th January, 1916? Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman explain how he was married after he was discharged?

Major TRYON: It is not a question of his being married after he was discharged. He was married after he was removed from duty on account of the illness. The point is that he got his illness before he married.

Mr. MACLEAN: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that this man returned to duty and worked for several months, that his wife drew a soldier's wife's allowance, and that, when he was pensioned, his wife drew a pensioner's allowance and an allowance for her child as well?

Major TRYON: It is, of course, quite true that a soldier who marries naturally draws a separation allowance for his wife, but there would be in this case no allowance so far as this Ministry is concerned. As a matter of fact, they received more than they ought, because he was not really entitled to an allowance from this Ministry for his wife.

Mr. MACLEAN: rose
—

Mr. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member will look at the Order Paper, he will see that we cannot debate every question. It does not give other hon. Members a fair chance at all.

Mr. MACLEAN: I beg to give notice that, owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the answer on the facts as stated, I shall raise the matter on the Motion for Adjournment.

CANADIAN CATTLE EMBARGO.

Captain W. BENN: 34.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether any notification was made to Dr. Tolmie, then Minister of Agriculture, that the British President of the Board of Agriculture could not carry out the pledge to lift the cattle embargo; and whether any public intimation based on this notification was made in the Canadian House of Commons?

Major BARNSTON (for Sir A. Boscawen): I presume the hon. Member
refers to conversations in 1919 between representatives of the Canadian Government and Lord Ernle, who was then President of the Board of Agriculture. The substance of these conversations was presumably conveyed by the Canadian representatives to Dr. Tolmie, who made a statement on the subject in reply to a question in the Canadian House of Commons on 11th March, 1920. I will circulate a copy of Dr. Tolmie's starement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:

Extract from the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Canadian House of Commons Debates, 11th March, 1920.

EMBARGO ON CANADIAN CATTLE.

Mr. Fournier:

1. Is there an embargo on Canadian cattle exported to Great Britain?
2. If so, have any representations been made since January, 1918, to the Imperial Government asking for the repeal of such embargo?
3. If so, when were these representations made?
4. What is the nature of these representations, and what was the reply of the Imperial Government?

Dr. Tolmie:

1. Yes. The legislation (United Kingdom) of 1896 prohibits the landing of cattle from all countries in the United Kingdom, except for purposes of immediate slaughter.

2. Yes. The representations, however, were of an informal nature and were not made through the usual official channels.

3. During the year 1919.

4. The representations for the removal of the embargo were made by Dr. Robertson and Mr. Arkell, the Live Stock Commissioner, through Colonel Amery, Parliamentary Secretary of the Colonial Office, and Lord Ernie, President of the Board of Agriculture. Both these gentlemen were seen on several occasions and the matter of the embargo discussed in detail. With Lord Ernle's approval, Dr. Robertson and Mr. Arkell conveyed similar representations to the Scottish Board of Agriculture, the Scottish and English Farmers' Unions, the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, the Agricultural Committee of the House of Commons, Special Committee of the London County Council, and to several other important, bodies in Scotland and in England, with the view of furnishing information which would enlist their support in Canada's position. The arguments used made reference to the health of Canadian cattle; to the fact that Canada regularly grows more cattle than she can finish; to the advantage which British feeders had previously obtained in feeding Canadian cattle; to the interests of British consumers in increasing the supply of fresh killed meat and to the very great importance of building up an Empire source of supply in compete-
tion with the control of the British meat trade which had already been secured by American packers.

The campaign which was carried on by Dr. Robertson and Mr. Arkell led to the matter being taken up in the Imperial Parliament. A question on several occasions was asked respecting the position of the Government. In substance the reply of the Government fully recognised that the embargo could no longer be continued against Canadian cattle on the grounds of disease but that in consideration of the unsettled condition of British agriculture and the lack of confidence amongst feeders and breeders which would be created by removing the embargo, the Government regard it as inadvisable to take any action in the matter. It may be added that, in personal conversation with Dr. Robertson and Mr. Arkell, Lord Ernie gave it as his considered opinion that, in view of the unsettled state of British agriculture following War conditions, it would be quite inopportune to take any action toward the removal of the embargo at the present time.

Captain BENN: Is it the fact that. Dr. Tolmie denies having made such a statement?

Major BARNSTON: I cannot say.

EX-SERVICE MEN (AIR MINISTRY).

Viscount CURZON: 35.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that in the Air Ministry (R.D. 3) there are cases of ex-service men men serving for half the pay under men very much younger than themselves, who only learnt their present profession while the ex-service men were fighting overseas; and what is the reason for this state of affairs?

The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Captain Guest): The facts are not as stated in my Noble Friend's question. Of the 16 members of the staff of R.D. 3, 13 are ex-service and three non-service men. The average age of the ex-service men is 31, of the non-service men 29; the average pay is.E465 and £600 respectively. The non-service men are the most experienced and best qualified members of the staff, and it has not been found possible to replace them by ex-service men.

COMMERCIAL AEROPLANES, GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 36.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is able to give the approximate number of com-
mercial British planes in actual service in this country as compared with the number of German planes operating in Germany?

Captain GUEST: It is not possible to draw any useful comparison between the total number of British commercial aeroplanes in operation in this country and the number of German planes operating in Germany, as the new Regulations (which permit of the manufacture of civil machines under certain conditions) only came into force on 5th May, 1922. The total number of machines available for civil air transport in Germany is 225, including 100 old ex-military machines (which are reported to be in bad condition). It is probable, however, that the number of machines operating in Germany will increase as a result of the new Regulations coming into force. The total number of British aircraft holding Certificates of Airworthiness in Great Britain is 115. This number includes all machines used for "joy-riding" purposes and for cross-country flights with passengers or goods. The number of commercial aircraft actually in service on the London-Paris and London-Brussels routes is 18, but, in addition, occasional trips to the Continent are made with other machines.

AIR POWER.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 37.
asked the Secretary of State for Air which country now possesses the most powerfully-equipped air force; and whether any country has to-day a greater ratio than the two-Power standard formerly held by Great Britain on the seas?

Captain GUEST: The comparative assessment of air strength for which my hon. Friend asks is most difficult to calculate, depending, as it does, not only on numbers of squadrons, machines and personnel, but on relative efficiency of armament and fighting power. The general position was explained in my speech of 21st March last on the Air Estimates. I do not think it desirable or possible to compare air strength on the basis of a one-Power or two-Power standard, but the subject is too complicated to be dealt with usefully by way of question and answer.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

BENEFIT.

Captain R. TERRELL: 40.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he will consider the desirability of posting in the window of each Employment Exchange a complete list of the names and addresses of those in receipt of the unemployment donation at the particular office, so that the local taxpayers can see who are the recipients and may be able to inform the authorities whether these recipients have, to their knowledge, refused work or are surreptitiously doing it while at the same time receiving assistance?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Sir Montague Barlow): I do not think it would be right to adopt this suggestion. In the main, the claimants are self-respecting working people out of employment through no fault of their own, and receiving assistance from a fund three-fourths of the income of which is contributed by their fellow-workpeople and their employers. I may add that arrangements are in operation under which the guardians ascertain from the Employment Exchanges whether persons claiming relief are in receipt of unemployment benefit.

Captain TERRELL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that if the suggestion contained in this question were adopted, a considerable saving of the taxpayers' money would be effected?

Sir M. BARLOW: I cannot accept that suggestion, in view of the fact which I have already stated, namely, that there is co-operation between the guardians and the unemployment relief authorities.

DOMESTIC SERVICE.

Captain TERRELL: 41.
asked the Minister of Labour how many women are in receipt of the unemployment donation at the Falmouth Employment Exchange; how many of them are registered as domestic servants; how many of these registered women have been offered employment in domestic service; how many have refused this employment; and what is the weekly cost of the donations paid to women at this Exchange?

Sir M. BARLOW: I understand that five women were in receipt of unemployment benefit at Falmouth on 26th May. I am obtaining the further details asked
for, and will communicate them to my hon. and gallant Friend as soon as possible.

Captain TERRELL: 49.
asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the increasing difficulty experienced by all families in obtaining domestic assistance and the dissatisfaction felt by the taxpayer at assisting 200,000 women, of whom a very large number could be absorbed in this class of employment, he will agree to the appointment of a small committee of business women to investigate the whole question and to advise the Government on the subject?

Sir M. BARLOW: I do not under-estimate the difficult of obtaining domestic assistance, but I do not think any appreciable number of the women now drawing unemployment benefit could reasonably be asked to enter domestic service or would be accepted by mistresses if they were willing to do so. Many of them are trained workers in the textile and other trades. On 15th May under 140,000 women were drawing benefit out of a total of 911,000 registered as wholly unemployed. As 2,750,000 women are employed in insured trades, it will easily be seen, having regard to the general state of trade, that the proportion of women drawing benefit, namely, about 5 per cent., is not at all surprising.

Captain TERRELL: May I have a reply to my question if the hon. Gentleman will reconsider the possibility of appointing a committee of business women to advise him?

Sir M. BARLOW: I do not think at the moment the necessity for such an inquiry arises. I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman and the House that we at the Labour Ministry are spending a great deal of time in perpetually watching the administration of the Act.

OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS (PRICES).

Sir ROBERT CLOUGH: 38.
asked the hon. Member for the Pollok Division of Glasgow, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether he can make any statement as to the effect of the increased prices for all official publications: whether there is any intention of making a profit on these documents of public interest; and why it is necessary to charge 6d. for a copy of a Parliamentary Bill, thus reducing the demand by which expenses can be met?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hilton Young): The new scale of charges for Parliamentary publications was only adopted in the autumn of last year, and it is not possible, therefore, to form a final judgment as to the effect on sales and revenue of the increase in prices. The general tendency, despite reduction in numbers sold, is to show a greatly increased revenue from sales. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative; the selling price is never fixed above cost of production. With regard to the last part of the question, it is not the case that a flat rate of 6d. is now being charged for all Parliamentary Bills. The prices of Bills are fixed according to a scale based on cost of production, and, therefore, vary roughly according to the number of pages. The average for the first 97 Bills of the Session was about 4d. Although there has been some falling off in sales of copies of Bills, the revenue shows a substantial increase, as is the case in regard to Government publications generally.

Sir C. YATE: Is it the case that the cost of production has increased four times within the last few years—that paper which cost 3s. two years ago cost 6s. last year and 12s. this year?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Baronet should put that question down.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

PHONETIC RESEARCH.

Sir J. D. REES: 59.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether grants from public funds for phonetic research are provided in the Budget for 1922–23?

The MINISTER of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Fisher): No provision for such grants is made in the Estimates of the Board of Education.

SCHOLARSHIPS (LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL).

Mr. KILEY: 61.
asked the President of the, Board of Education whether he is aware that a number of children who have won scholarships in the county of London have been refused by the London County Council on the grounds that their parents were not born in Great Britain; and, if so, will he use his influence to see that these children who were born and educated in this country and who, by their ability, have obtained the scholar-
ships in question, are not penalised on account of their parents' place of birth?

Mr. FISHER: I am informed that the conditions of eligibility for the London County Council scholarships are as follow:

(i) The candidate must have been born within His Majesty's Dominions,or the candidate's father must have been born within His Majesty's Dominions and must have been a British subject at the time of the candidate's birth; and
(ii) The candidate must be a British subject at the time of application and during the tenure of the award.
It appears, therefore, that children born in this country are not ineligible for these scholarships by reason of the fact that their parents were born outside Great Britain or outside His Majesty's Dominions.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

SUPPLIES (IMPERIAL PREFERENCE).

Lieut.-Colonel HILDER: 62.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty if his Department is giving preference to the products of the Empire in placing orders for Navy supplies; and has his attention been called to the statements made in Australia and New Zealand that orders for Navy meat are going to foreign rather than to British sources?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Amery): The answer to both parts of the question is in the affirmative. The Admiralty practice is to give a preference to products of the Empire even when such action involves payment of a somewhat higher price. Certain supplies of frozen beef from South America have been obtained by the Admiralty from shipments imported by the Board of Trade, but arrangements are now in progress with a view to substituting Empire-grown supplies for issue to the Navy. As regards frozen mutton, all Admiralty supplies are stipulated to be Australian or New Zealand meat.

NAVAL VICE-CONSUL, CALLAO.

Commander BELLAIRS: 64.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the reason for the employment of a naval Vice-Consul at Callao at a salary and allowances of £600 per annum borne on Naval Votes?

Mr. AMERY: This officer holds the position of Vice-Consul, but as he is the only naval officer employed on the Pacific side of the American Continent, and his duties are mainly connected with maritime affairs, it has been agreed with the Foreign Office that his expenses should be borne on Navy Votes.

Commander BELLAIRS: Is not this one of the war survivals we have found it difficult to get rid of, and are not maritime affairs mercantile affairs, which are much better settled by the Board of Trade and the Foreign Office?

Mr. AMERY: This is not a survival. The maritime and other work which this officer does is wanted at the present time.

GERMANY (COST OF LIVING).

Mr. KILEY: 43.
asked the Minister of Labour whether his attention has been called to page 235 of the "Labour Gazette" for May, 1922, which contains statistics showing that in July last the percentage increase on the cost of living in Germany as compared with July, 1914, stood at 863, whereas the latest figures available show that on 22nd March of this year the percentage figure has risen to 2,202; and if he will state from what authoritative sources these figures are compiled, and can he give the figures for April?

Sir M. BARLOW: Yes, Sir. The figures quoted are extracted from the official journal of the Gorman Federal Department of Statistics, by whom they are compiled. The corresponding figure for April is 3,075.

HAGUE CONFERENCE.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is in a position to give the names of the British representatives at the Hague Conference; whether any members of His Majesty's Government intend to visit the Conference; and whether he himself intends to be present at any time during the proceedings?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): The British Financial Expert at the Hague Conference will be my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and the British Trade Expert will be my hon. Friend the Parliamentary
Secretary of the Overseas Trade Department. It is not in contemplation that any other Minister should attend the Conference.

Mr. R. McNEILL: Have any arrangements yet been made for the next conference after The Hague?

RUSSIA AND ITALY.

Mr. MALONE: 47.
asked the Prime Minister if he has any particulars regarding the recent treaty between Russia and Italy?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir; we have not yet received any particulars of this agreement.

Mr. MALONE: Is it a fact that certain oil concessions which were intended for British interests have now been transferred to Italy?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have no reason to think so. We have not yet received any particulars of this agreement, but I should be surprised if that were true.

RECORDER OF LONDON.

Captain W. BENN: 48.
asked the Lord Privy Seal whether he can make any statement concerning the communications which have taken place between the Lord Chancellor and the hon. and learned Member for Upton?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I thought the hon. and gallant Gentleman's curiosity would have been satisfied by the statement made yesterday and by the publication of the correspondence in the Press. I have nothing to add.

Captain BENN: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why the Lord Chancellor said the practice was to impose the condition that the Recorder should not continue to be a Member of the House, and what accounts for the change of attitude now?

Lieut.-Commander KENWO RTHY: Is it usual to use the word "curiosity" in referring to an hon. Member's question?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I withdraw the offensive word and substitute "his thirst for knowledge."

Captain BENN: Will any opportunity occur for discussing the Motion which stands on the Paper in reference to this matter in the name of several hon. Members?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My attention has been called to the Motion, but, after the answer I gave yesterday, I cannot think there is any reason for making a special allowance of time for a Motion on this subject.

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES' RETURNS (FEES).

Mr. HURD: 49.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has yet received the deputation representative of the interests concerned regarding the suggested imposition of a fee of 10s for annual returns made by friendly societies to the Chief Registrar; and to what decision he has now come?

Sir R. HORNE: I received the deputation referred to on Friday last. Certain suggestions made by the deputation are being investigated and no decision has yet been taken.

EXPORT CREDITS.

Mr. HURD: 50.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if his attention has been called to the statement of the chairman of the Commercial Union Insurance Company to the effect that a scheme was under consideration for the co-operation of the banks in the formation of a company to undertake the insurance of export credits whether he will state the nature of these proposals; and whether, in pursuance of the policy of successive imperial conferences and successive British Governments, His Majesty's Ministers will see that the operations of any such company are especially directed to the development of Home and Imperial resources?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir W. Mitchell-Thomson): In the unavoidable absence of my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade, I have been asked to reply. My hon. Friend has read a statement, as reported in the Press, made by the chairman of the Commercial Union Insurance Company, but he has not been approached on the subject and has no details of the proposals.

Oral Answers to Questions — SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES ACT.

LAMP-BLOWN WARE.

Mr. FOOT: 51.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that a post package, No. 956, containing 35 dozen lamp-blown Christmas-tree ornaments, arrived in London on the 6th May, advised by the Customs and Excise on the 15th, and, on the importer attending with the necessary forms and the 33⅓ per cent. duty due under the Safeguarding of Industries Act on lamp-blown ware, he was informed by the officials that he need not pay the duty; will he explain under what method these exemptions are given to some firms and not to all; and, if it is not intended to collect duty on lamp-blown ware, will he issue a notice accordingly, and also specify whether this exemption applies to commodities other than lamp-blown ware?

Sir R. HORNE: The details given in the question are not sufficient to identify the package, but they indicate that on presentation of the invoices, etc., it was found that the goods came within the scope of the Treasury Order exempting from Key Industry Duty all toys and fancy goods in which the part liable to duty does not exceed 10 per cent. of the value of the article.

CUSTOMS PARCELS, GRIMSBY.

Mrs. WINTRINGHAM: 67.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that duties paid on parcels N 1/763 and N 1/122 forwarded to the Customs at Grimsby on the 11th May were only acknowledged on the 24th, and that on parcels No. 351 to 354 payments were forwarded on the 17th May, but no receipt has yet been received; and whether he will take some action, either by increasing the staff or by adopting some other system, to prevent the holding up of goods owing to the collection of these various duties, seeing that his efforts and promises have failed to secure the prompt clearance and delivery of goods so essential for the carrying on of trade?

Mr. YOUNG: The parcels cannot be identified from the details given in the question. If the hon. Member will supply me with the reference numbers quoted at the head of the relative Customs notices of arrival, or, failing these, the names of
the importers and the dates of importation, I will make inquiry and communicate the result to her.

JAPANESE WINDOW BLINDS,

Mr. C. WHITE: 68.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Teasury whether he will make improved arrangements for dealing with goods over which a dispute arises, as in the case of a recent consignment of Japanese window blinds, where the Customs officer inaccurately asserted that certain glass beads forming part of the blinds were made by the lamp-blown process, which necessitated the detaining of the goods from the 6th to the 29th March, involving heavy charges upon the importer and the deposit of 33⅓ per cent. duty in cash; and whether he is aware that the deposit was not obtainable until after a delay of two months, during which time the importer was unable to sell the goods owing to the uncertainty as to whether the duty plus charges would be payable or not?

Mr. YOUNG: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on the 22nd instant to a question by the hon. Member for Whitechapel, which, I assume, relates to the same consignment. As regards the period from the 6th to the 29th March, I would remind the hon. Member that, pending a decision as to liability, delivery of the goods could have been obtained at any time after importation on a deposit being made with the Customs to cover any duty which might prove to be chargeable. This deposit was not actually made until the 29th March. The delay in returning the deposit was due to the fact that a question of principle, requiring careful consideration, had first to be determined.

Captain W. BENN: Has the Cabinet decided the principle involved in Part II of the Act?

MINT (EXPENDITURE).

Mr. WISE: 52.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the gross expenditure of the Mint, including coinage, has gone up from £143,374 in 1913–14 to £383,160 in 1921–22 and £6,019,000 in 1922–23?

Sir R. HORNE: The gross expenditure is increased owing to an accounting change introduced this year under which the silver withdrawn for recoinage is
passed through the Vote account. The hon. Member will have observed that there is a counterbalancing increase in the receipt and that the net total of the Vote remains a nominal sum of £10.

MOTOR CHASSIS (IMPORT DUTY).

Mr. RAPER: 54.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether any import duty is still being imposed on motor chassis to be used for taximeter cabs, chars-a-bane, hotel omnibuses, and funeral hearses; and, if so, why?

Sir R. HORNE: Motor cars are, by Section 13 (4) of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1915, exempt from import duty if they are proved to the satisfaction of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise to be constructed and adapted for use, and intended to be used solely as motor omnibuses, or motor ambulances, or in connection with the conveyance of goods or burden in the course of trade or husbandry, or by a local authority as fire engines or otherwise for the purposes of their fire brigade services. Taxicabs do not fall within any head of the exemption but motor chars-à-bane and hotel omnibuses, if used solely as motor omnibuses, and motor hearses are exempt.

Mr. RAPER: Is it not a fact that the right hon. Gentleman stated that there is no charge for industrial motor cars, but that the duty is placed solely on touring cars, and, if so, do taxicabs come under the category of touring cars or industrial vehicles, and if the latter, why do they pay the 33⅓ per cent. duty?

Sir R. HORNE: The other day I gave the hon. Member the precise words of the Statute which deals with the matter. I do not think I can elucidate the matter further.

Mr. RAPER: rose
—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member will have an opportunity of raising the matter in the Committee on the Finance Bill.

HOUSING (TENDERS).

Sir J. D. REES: 56.
asked the Minister of Health whether steps can and will be
taken to restrain local bodies from accepting tenders for housing at rates substantially higher than those at which the Corporation of Nottingham has succeeded in obtaining tenders, namely, £50 per house?

Mr. PARKER (for Sir Alfred Mond): The price obtained at Nottingham will naturally influence other local authorities in considering tenders, but conditions vary in different localities, and my right hon. Friend could not usefully specify any general limit.

Sir J. D. REES: Why cannot the Minister of Health put forward Nottingham as the example which it is so well qualified to be?

Mr. SPEAKER: Because the hon. Member does that so frequently himself.

UNEMPLOYMENT AND HEALTH INSURANCE.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. HOPE: 57.
asked the Minister of Health when the Departmental Committee now considering the practicability of amalgamating unemployment and health insurance cards and administration will present its Report?

Mr. PARKER: My right hon. Friend is informed that the Committee are making satisfactory progress with their consideration of the matters referred to them, but that they are not yet able to say when their report may be expected.

Sir J. HOPE: Will the hon. Gentleman accelerate the Report in view of the recommendations of the Geddes Committee for amalgamation on grounds of economy?

Mr. PARKER: I will bring the matter to my right hon. Friend's attention.

GERMAN NAVY.

Mr. WISE: 63.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the strength of the German Navy in ships, torpedo-boats, submarines, etc.; how many new ships, etc., have been added in the last 12 months; and how many are being built at the present time?

Mr. AMERY: As the answer is somewhat long, I propose, with my hon.
Friend's permission, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:

GERMAN NAVY.

Present Strength.

Battleships.—Eight, two of which are in reserve, with armament, but without ammunition.

Light Cruisers.—Eight, two of which are in reserve, with armament, but without ammunition.

Destroyers.—Sixteen, four of which are in reserve, with armament, but without ammunition.

Torpedo Boats.—Sixteen, four of which are in reserve, with armament, but without ammunition.

Gunboats.—Four, two of which are without. armament.

Surveying Vessels.—Two.

Miscellaneous Vessels. — Minesweepers; numbers will not be fixed until minesweeping operations have been completed.

Ships Added.

No ships have been added during the last 12 months.

Ships Building.

Authority has been given for building one light cruiser. Her construction has, however, been held up pending the reply to Germany's request to be allowed to retain one of her war light cruisers, instead of building a new ship.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

WOMEN EMPLOYÉS (GRADING).

Mr. RENDALL: 65.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the women in the Civil Service consider that reorganisation has been used as a cover to grade their work lower than that of the men; that it is felt that the removal of women from mixed branches has taken place in order to obviate comparisons of the grading of men and women: and that the changing of the personnel of the official side of the Savings Bank grading committee when women's branches was under discussion was effected with the same purpose; and
whether, in view of the dissatisfaction as to the position of women in the service shown by all the women's organisations in the country, he will appoint a small independent Committee to examine and report on the accusations of unfair grading?

Mr. YOUNG: There is no foundation for the suggestions in the question that work is being graded differently according to the sex of the officer who will perform it, or that staffs have been moved with that object in view. As regards the women's branches of the Savings Bank, I understand that the changing of personnel referred to involved the replacing of two men by one woman and one man, who were regarded as specially qualified by their experience to deal with any questions which might arise. I am not prepared to adopt the proposal made in the last part of the question.

MESSENGERS.

Mr. RAPER: 73.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many messengers are employed in the Civil Service in an established capacity: how many in an unestablished capacity; how' many are ex-service men; how many are non-service men; how many women and girls are employed as messengers; and how many ex-service messengers, showing percentage of disabled, have been discharged from Government Departments during the last 12 months?

Mr. YOUNG: Exact information on all the points referred to in the question could only be obtained by a disproportionate expenditure of time and labour, but I am making inquiries and. sill communicate to the hon. Member figures showing broadly the position. I should, however, like to take this opportunity of stating that the classes of adult messenger (established and unestablished) are almost entirely composed of ex-service men.

Mr. RAPER: 74.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury why unestablished messengers in the Civil Service do not receive sick pay the same as in the case of established messengers when they are employed on identically the same class of work; and what is the basic rate of salary paid to both established and unestablished messengers in the Civil Service?

Mr. YOUNG: Sick leave Regulations applicable to unestablished classes of Government employés are generally different from those applicable to established classes. I cannot accept the suggestion that unestablished messengers are employed on identically the same class of work. The established men are normally employed on superior duties. The basic rates of salary (i.e., exclusive of bonus) in London are 27s. rising to 32s. a week for the unestablished grade (or 55s. 4d. to 65s. 7d. a week in all), and 290 rising to £130 (or £184 10s. to £244 11s. in all) for the established grade.

Mr. RAPER: Is it not a fact that temporary clerks in the Civil Service are paid sick pay, and why should unestablished messengers, the lowest paid class in the Civil Service, not be given sick pay?

Mr. YOUNG: I am afraid that in regard to questions between one class and another I must ask for notice. It is rather a detailed matter.

Mr. RAPER: Is it not a fact that the unestablished messengers are the lowest paid class in the Civil Service, and the only class which is not given sick pay?

Mr. YOUNG: I should like to have notice of a question involving details.

STAMP OFFICE, PORTSMOUTH.

Sir T. BRAMSDON: 71.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if it has been decided in the interest of economy to close the stamp office at Portsmouth in July next; if so, will he state in what way economy will be effected and the amount of it, and what individual services will be dispensed with at Portsmouth; whether increased duties or services will be occasioned at the central office in London; whether further work and expense incurred will be thrown upon the Post Office in the transmission of documents and expenses of stationery; whether he has had pointed out to him by the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce and others the great inconvenience and delay to business men in Portsmouth if the present method is abolished; and whether he will state when an opportunity of raising this point in Debate will occur?

Mr. YOUNG: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative.
The estimated saving is about £600 per annum in salaries, rent, etc., from which sum small deductions will fall to be made on account of the services of the Post Office. The services of two officers will be dispensed with at Portsmouth without consequent addition to staff in London. As regards the representations made to me, steps have been taken to minimise any inconvenience which might otherwise result from the closing of the office.

Sir T. BRAMSDON: Can the hon. Gentleman say when this matter can be raised?

Mr. YOUNG: I imagine it can be best raised upon the Public Works and Buildings Vote. If not there, I do not know where it could be raised; possibly upon the Treasury Vote, Ministers' Salaries.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are a good many other places where objection is taken, besides Portsmouth?

Mr. YOUNG: Yes. I should like to emphasise the fact that this is not a case of any single city suffering whatever inconvenience is suffered in this economy. It is an economy which has had to be made over a large number of places.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Sir DONALD MACLEAN: May I ask the Leader of the House what business he proposes to take to-night, and if he can tell us what business he proposes to lay before the House when it reassembles?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: We propose to take the Orders on the Paper, 1 to 6 inclusive and 8 and 10. None of these, I think, are of a controversial character.
On the reassembling of the House, we propose, on Monday, 12th June, to take the Burma Constitution Rules, the Allotments Bill Second Reading, and minor Orders on the Paper.
On Tuesday, Supply, and the Votes for the Cabinet Offices and Ministry of Health have been asked for.
On Wednesday, the Summer Time Bill, Second Reading, the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, Second Reading, and minor Orders on the Paper.
On Thursday, the India Office Vote, in Committee of Supply.
The business for Friday, I will, with permission, announce after we return.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: May I ask whether, in case we get through the non-controversial Measures early, it will be possible for the Government to move the Adjournment in order to get rid of some of the subjects that might be discussed to-morrow, so that we may get away a little bit earlier to-morrow?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, if that be the desire of the House, as soon as we have got through the business we will move the Adjournment of the House, and that will enable a discussion to be taken.

Captain W. BENN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say on what date the Resolutions for the Constitutional Reform of the House of Lords will be brought forward?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No Sir, I am sorry to say that I cannot.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that the Rules for the Burma Constitution are laid before the Adjournment, so that any Amendments that we wish to make may be put upon the Paper and not sent in in manuscript on the actual date on which we meet?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: They will be circulated to-morrow with the Papers. The reason for the delay has been that my Noble Friend felt that it would not be proper for him to lay them on the Table of the House until the Joint Committee appointed by the two Houses had had an opportunity of considering them. It is now being done, and they will be circulated with the Votes to-morrow.

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do meet to-morrow at Eleven of the Clock."—[Mr. Chamberlain.]

Captain W. BENN: I want to take advantage of this Motion to ask the Leader of the House a question as to what form the Motion for Adjournment is going to take to-morrow. There has been a growing practice of late to put down a Motion "That this House at its rising do adjourn" to a certain date, and, that having been passed without debate or opposition, then to move "That this House do now adjourn." Small minorities thus suffer, because, as soon as the De-
bate has proceeded to a certain length, Members are absent, the House is counted out, and Members are deprived of their only opportunity of bringing forward matters to the notice of the Government. Therefore, I wish to ask the Leader of the House whether to-morrow he will either put down the ordinary Motion "That this House do adjourn to 12th June," which is the old form, or, failing that, whether he will, through the usual channels, give some undertaking that as long as Members desire to raise points of public interest a House will be kept?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: This is a point which I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman raised on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House at Easter. I propose to follow what is now the ordinary course. It is a course which the hon. and gallant Gentleman disapproves at present while he sits in Opposition, but which he will consistently and gladly follow the moment he comes to this Bench. I propose to put down the Motion "That this House at its rising do adjourn to Monday, 12th June," and, when that has been disposed of, to move "That this House do now adjourn." On the second Motion, the first I hope having taken no time and having been unanimously agreed to, hon. Gentlemen can discuss as long as they care to keep a House, but I do not think that it is a reasonable claim to make that the Members of the Government party, who, after all, have to bear the great burden of keeping a House for the purpose of the business of the country, should also keep a House for any individual Member who cannot get thirty-nine of his own friends or Members of the House to listen to him.

Mr. HOGGE: It was I who raised this question on the Easter Adjournment. While, of course, the Leader of the House is entitled to exercise the power that sits behind him in preventing minorities from making their points, he must remember, and he does remember, that this form of Adjournment was altered during the War for a specific purpose. It did not obtain in pre-War days. Surely my right hon. Friend is not going to contend that, unless any individual Member can secure specific pledges from forty other Members of this House, he cannot discuss anything on the Adjournment. Over and over again the Leader of the House has told Members that opportunity would arise for discuss-
ing questions on the. Motion for the Adjournment, and ordinary and private Members expect that, because they cannot very well interfere with the larger business of the House. It is true that the Adjournment Motion does provide the opportunity which is denied to the private Member over and over again, and it surely says very little either for the discipline of my right hon. Friend's party or the courtesy of the Leader of the House that he cannot, by arrangement with his Whips, keep a hundred of his Members in the House in order to closure any subject which he thinks a private Member may be using as an excuse. If any private Member cares to raise a question on the Adjournment, which is an outrage on the forms of the House, the Government can closure it. They require to keep 100 Members to do that. It is because the Leader of the House does not care to keep 100 Members in the House for the purpose—

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Hear, hear!

Mr. HOGGE: That makes the case worse, because it is the duty of the Leader of the House to carry out the functions of the House, and one of the functions of the House is to afford private Members that opportunity on the Adjournment. It is an abuse, and a scandalous abuse, of the forms of the House that this Motion, imported for a certain purpose within the last few years, should be utilised to prevent the minority from exercising their undoubted rights.

Mr. RAWLINSON: Will the Secretary of State for the Colonies speak first to-morrow?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes. As soon as we get the Motion for the Adjournment my right hon. Friend will make his statement.

The House proceeded to a Division.

Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr. McCurdy were nominated Tellers for the Ayes; and Mr. Hogge was appointed Teller for the Noes; but, no Member being willing to act as the second Teller for the Noes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Ayes had it.

Resolved, "That this House do meet To-morrow, at Eleven of the Clock."

BILLS REPORTED.

Land Drainage Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill,

Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Order confirmed].

Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 6) Bill,

Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed].

Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Pilotage Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill,

Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed].

Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Tramways Provisional Order Bill,

Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Order confirmed].

Report to lie upon the Table.

Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

Exeter Corporation Bill,

Rugby School Bill [Lords],

Windsor Gas Bill,

Reported, with Amendments.

Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to—

Bristol Corporation Bill,

Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Bill, with Amendments.

Amendments to—

Stoke-on-Trent Corporation (Gas Consolidation) Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Law relating to Allotments." [Allotments Bill [Lords.]

Also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the Provost, Magistrates and
Councillors of the burgh of Ayr to construct a generating station and works and utilise the waters of Loch Doon for generating electricity; to make further provision with regard to their electricity undertaking; and for other purposes." [Ayr Burgh (Electricity) Bill [Lords.]

Also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to provide for the transfer of the electricity undertaking of the Urban Electric Supply Company, Limited, at Newton Abbot, in the county of Devon, to the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the borough of Torquay; to extend the area for the supply of electricity by the said Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses; and to make further provision in regard to their electricity undertaking." [Torquay Corporation (Electricity) Bill [Lords.]

Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to alter the style and title of the Corporation of the City of Kingston-upon-Hull; and to confer further powers upon the corporation of that city in relation to their waLer undertaking and the local government and improvement of the city; and for other purposes."[Kingston-upon-Hull Corporation [Lords.]

And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to make new provisions as to the charges to be made by the Chester United Gas Company and as to the application of the profits of the company; and for other purposes."[Chester Gas Bill [Lords.]

Ayr Burgh (Electricity) Bill [Lords],
Torquay Corporation (Electricity) Bill [Lords],
Kingston upon Hull Corporation Bill [Lords],
Chester Gas Bill [Lords],

Read the First time: and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

LAW OF PROPERTY BILL [Lords].

Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee B.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday, 12th June, and to be printed. [Bill 145.]

ALLOTMENTS BILL [Lords].

Read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday, 12th June, and to be printed. [Bill 146.]

TEACHERS IN GRANT-AIDED SCHOOLS (SUPERANNUATION).

Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices, brought up, and read.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 106.]

Orders of the Day — HARBOURS, DOCKS AND PIERS (TEMPORARY INCREASE OF CHARGES) BILL.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Mr. Neal): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The Bill is to give power to certain public utility authorities, namely, the authorities in charge of harbours and docks and piers, to continue increased charges upon their statutory maxima for a period extending to 15th February, 1925. The classes of public undertakings concerned may be subdivided into three, and different methods of legislative action are in force at this moment with reference to two of them. First, there are the undertakings, set up under statutory authority, whereby those undertakings are vested in and administered by gentlemen who receive no remuneration, in most cases, but give their time and services to the interests of the localities and the industries which are served by those particular undertakings. The second class are the harbours, docks and piers owned by the railway companies. There are a few minor and unimportant undertakings vested in companies, which exist for private profit, with control of their dividend-earning account.
As to undertakings other than railway-owned undertakings, the position is that by an Act which was passed in the year 1920' the Minister of Transport was authorised to modify the statutory provisions for such period, and under such conditions as he might determine up to a period which ends on 15th February next; and the way in which the charges were to be arrived as was as follows: Where they were non-profit-earning undertakings the charges were to be fixed at a sum estimated to produce financial stability. As to profit-earning concerns, they were to secure, with due economy and careful management, a reasonable return on capital. The Statute provided for the making by the Minister of interim Orders which would have validity for only six months, and in every case, whether there was an interim Order or not, before the Minister exercised his
power he was to refer the matter to the Rates Advisory Committee, which was specially set up under Section 21 of the Ministry of Transport Act. That Committee consists, not only of the ordinary permanent members of the committee, but had two added members, one representing trade, and one, representing the Chamber of Shipping. Any Order that has been made under that Statute by its terms expires on 23rd February next, or such earlier date as may be fixed in the meantime. That is an important matter to be noted by hon. Members, because no Order which has been made will be continued under the provisions of the present Bill. In every case it will be necessary for the undertaker, at present having orders operative under the sanction of the Minister, to come again to the Minister before 15th February next for the purpose of getting new orders, and in each case there will be a new reference to the Advisory Committee.
Under the Statute, 39 Orders have been made and the whole of them will expire by 5th February next. The other class of undertakings are those which are owned by the railway companies, and one, an extremely important one, the undertaking of the Port of London Authority. None of these undertakings has availed itself of the provisions of the 1920 Act. They found it unnecessary to do so, inasmuch as they had been taken possession of by the Minister under the powers of the Ministry of Transport. Act and charges which he had directed them to make during control remain operative until the date mentioned, namely, 15th February, 1923. They remain operative in the sense that they change from being obligatory charges during control to optional charges when control ceases. There are some 47 dock and harbour undertakings which come within this second class, making, with the 39 I have mentioned, 86 undertakings in respect of which it hill be necessary, or would have been necessary but for this Bill, for each undertaker to, come to Parliament in the present Session with a private Bill asking for an increase, of his statutory charges.
Under these circumstances, the Government was approached in the autumn of last year by all classes of harbour and dock authorities, who pointed out that it would be quite impossible for them to make ends meet with pre-War charging powers only. They put this problem to
the Government as to whether or not they were to be compelled to come to Parliament with this great mass of private Bill legislation at great public expense—most of them are public trusts—flooding Parliament with legislation and producing a block. In the circumstances, the 'Government undertook to introduce a Measure which should extend the period for 12 months. The effect of limiting it for 12 months would he that almost immediately, that is to say, in the autumn of this year, these undertakings would again have to face the problem of private Bill legislation next Session. For that reason, and for another reason which I will mention later, the Government invite the House to accept an extended date, namely, two years from February next, which would carry the authorities up to February, 1925. The railway companies and the Port of London Authority were in a different position. As to the railway companies, unless legislation becomes effective this Session, they would revert in February next to their pre-War charging powers.

Major BARNES: Have the railway companies not referred to the Rates Advisory Committee in respect to the charges at docks?

Mr. NEAL: No. I am advised that their powers of charging would revert, as from February next, to their pre-War maxima, and they would have no power of applying to the Government or the Bates Advisory Committee or anyone to increase those charges. Therefore, the railway companies this autumn would have to consider, just in the same way as the other undertakers would have to consider, the question of coming to Parliament next Session. In other words, we should only be postponing by 12 months the difficulties which we were called upon to face last autumn. Hon. Members will notice that Clause 1 of the Bill deals specially with railway companies and it may save time if I explain how that comes about. The Statute of 1920 dealing with profit-earning concerns, provided that charges were to be fixed in such a way as would give a reasonable return upon capital. In the case of railway undertakings their capital is not so divided as to show how much they have invested in their docks and harbours, and it becomes impossible to assess what amount of capital should be
taken for this purpose. We should therefore be called upon to fix charges upon what is in fact an unknown and unascertainable figure.

Sir DONALD MACLEAN: Why is it unknown?

Mr. NEAL: Because it is impossible to sort out the capital accounts of the various companies spread over many years and to say how much of their capital has been spent upon a dock or harbour, or how much spent out of revenue.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Surely they know how much they have paid.

Mr. NEAL: No, indeed they do do not, and that is the trouble. As my right hon. Friend has put the question I trust he will accept my answer. It is the result of careful inquiry. There are no statistics available which would show with anything approaching precision, what capital is invested by the railway companies in these particular branches of their undertakings. In these circumstances they did not in the past avail themselves of the 1920 Statute, and great difficulty would arise, not for themselves so much as for the Rates Advisory Committee and the Ministry, in saying what was the capital, in respect of which they were to be allowed a reasonable return on these undertakings. The plan which we propose to adopt I now submit to the House. It may well be that in Committee other plans will be suggested which one might consider as preferable to the plans contained in the Bill. The plan in the Bill is to take the known capital, in respect of a similar undertaking which is a self-contained undertaking, and adopt that as a guide to the Rates Advisory Committee in estimating the revenue which a particular dock or harbour ought to produce. The plan has another advantage. Many times we have had complaints both in this House and outside that those docks and harbours which exist under the management of private individuals, not for the purpose of earning profit, have been starved and rendered incapable of paying their way by the competition of the railway docks—the railways not minding whether they made a loss upon the docks or not. The plan in the Bill does to some extent ensure that there shall be no competition to the detriment of the non-profit earnings undertakings.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Do we understand that the railway companies must charge these high dock rates?

Mr. NEAL: That is dealt with in the Railways Act, with which my hon. and gallant Friend was familiar, when we were discussing it in detail in Committee. It may have escaped his memory at the moment, but there is a Section of the Railways Act dealing with that question. The point I am making is, how we are to arrive at the sort of charge which the railway company ought to make for these services, because if they carry on their docks at a loss, they merely carry over that loss to the other users of the railway and the public ultimately have to pay. What we desire to secure is, that the charges made shall be fair and reasonable. May I say why we have selected the two years' extension, to February, 1925? Hon. Members will recall that the process of the grouping of the railways is taking place, and that at the end of the present year the schemes of the four big undertakings will be completed. We have thought it right again, with the object of preventing a waste of money and an expenditure of time upon Private Bill legislation, to fix a period which will enable the companies to have become groups and, therefore, reduce railway Private Bill legislation, as to docks and harbour charges, to four Bills instead of something over 40 Bills. I hope that reason will commend itself to the judgment of the House. No one realises more fully than I do the extreme necessity of cutting down all items of cost, which have to be taken into account as factors in trade, and this scheme provides a means of doing so. I have already intimated that the non-profit earning concerns will have to come before the Rates Advisory Committee. The Committee is bound to give public notice to chambers of commerce, chambers of shipping, representative bodies of traders, and local authorities, and these will all be heard at practically a negligible expense, because the formalities are almost nil. They can be heard before the Rates Advisory Committee and make their case to that Committee for a reduction of the charges. They will get an opportunity for the discussion of the effect of the reduction in wages. Hon. Members will recall that one of the main factors in the high dock charges to-day arises from the wages that were given to the dock
labourers under the award of the Committee of Commission presided over by Lord Shaw.

Mr. SEXTON: They are down now.

Mr. NEAL: They were 16s. and they are now 12s. That is a factor to be taken into, consideration. All these facts will be taken into account by the Committee in considering what charges are necessary, in order that these undertakings which are not working for profit, which are in the hands of private gentlemen who are giving their services, may be enabled to keep themselves in a solvent position. There is ample opportunity for a revision of the charges in respect of docks, ports and harbours. As to the railways, and as to the Port of London Authority, if this Bill passes in its present form or without substantial amendment, they would come under the power of revision as from the i5th of February next.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Will this power of revision only be exercised when the traders make complaints, or will the Government at stated intervals revise the terms in order to see whether a better bargain may not be made?

Mr. NEAL: There is a power of initiation in the Minister. He may of his own motion put the matter before the Advisory Committee and modify the charges as he may be advised. In addition to that there is constantly going on, in the Ministry, an examination of the accounts of the companies and the result of representations which are made from time to time on the examination of the accounts has been, in the past, that the undertakers have voluntarily reduced the charges which they were entitled to make. Since I came into the House to-day I have had handed to me information that the railway companies themselves propose to reduce the tonnage rates on vessels on the North-East coast, the Humber ports and the South Wales and Bristol Channel ports, from the increase which was authorised of 150 per cent. on their actual charges to 100 per cent. That is a concession which the railway companies are making voluntarily and in connection with the ports of Fleetwood, Garston, Heysham and Widnes, they are reducing them by 25 per cent. of the increased charge.

Mr. A. SHAW: Do I understand the hon. Gentleman to say 25 per cent. of the increased charges? Is it not 10 per cent. of the increased charges?

Mr. NEAL: I will put it more clearly. It is a reduction from 150 per cent. to 125 per cent.

Sir G. COLLINS: Is it possible to ascertain the net revenue of these undertakings in 1913 and the total net revenue last year? Are not these figures available?

Mr. NEAL: I am afraid those particulars are not available, and what we have to do is to try and see that in present economic conditions these undertakings are enabled to pay their way. That is what we desire, and that, I hope, will be the result of the Bill.

Mr. CAIRNS: Does the announcement of the hon. Gentleman affect collieries?

Mr. NEAL: No; I ought to have said that the reduction I have mentioned on the North-East coast did not apply in the case of vessels taking bunker coal only, for which the rate will remain as at present. I hope I have made it plain to the House that at the present moment no one has any control of the railway charges for docks and harbours, and no one will have any control up to February next.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Would they not fall to their legal maxima if this Bill were not passed?

Mr. NEAL: I quite agree that after February next they would fall to their legal maxima, with the result that users of railways would be proportionately charged.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: No.

Mr. NEAL: There I differ with my hon. and gallant Friend. This is a Bill which I submit to the judgment of the House as one which ought to receive careful consideration in Committee, and without more words I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.

Sir D. MACLEAN: The hon. Gentleman has asked that the Bill should receive careful consideration. I assure him that will undoubtedly be the case. I hope it will receive intensive consideration in Committee upstairs, because it is a matter
of real importance not to any particular section of the community, but to the whole community which depénds so much upon its trade and its ports. I had hoped that when some such Bill as this was introduced, it would have been introduced by a Minister—and I should have been very glad if that Minister had been my hon. Friend—representing the Board of Trade. It is now over six months since Sir Eric Geddes recommended that there was no justification for retaining a separate Ministry of Transport especially having regard to the financial stringency.

Mr. NEAL: We have made further economies since that Report, although no further economies were recommended.

Sir D. MACLEAN: It is out of order to debate the continuance of this Ministry now, and I merely make it a general observation before passing on to other points, but I will finish the quotation I was making. Sir Eric Geddes proposed to take part in the discussion as to the best method of distributing the Ministry's work among the existing Departments of the Government, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer replied, on the 21st November last year:
I entirely agree with the course he proposes to take in connection with the deliberations of the Committee in regard to the Ministry of Transport.
Still the Ministry is in existence, and we have had the pleasure of my hon. Friend introducing this Bill, but apart from that there is no doubt that the time is long overdue for this Ministry to be abolished and its duties distributed amongst other Government Departments. As to the Bill itself, I lay down this general proposition, with which I am certain I shall have hearty agreement in all parts of the House. Measures of this kind are of real daily importance, not to lawyers or to railway experts alone, but to commercial men and their heads of Departments, and Bills of this kind ought to be framed as far as possible in such a way that they can be construed with comparative ease and without any reference to other Acts of Parliament. Let hon. Members look at this Bill as a complete example of the disadvantages of legislation by reference. It starts off by reference to the principal Act. of 1920; then at the end of that Clause—Clause 1—it makes a reference again, to Section 3 of the Ministry of Transport, Act, 1919, a
very long and a very complicated Section, as I happen to know; then, in the next Clause, it makes another reference, to the Railways Act, 1921. Every one of these references is necessary to anything like an intelligible understanding of what this Measure is, so that hon. Members may have noticed that since I came in I have been surrounding myself with the various Statutes concerned, for the purpose of understanding this Debate. What will happen in a commercial office when this Bill is on the Statute Book? The head of the department who is supposed to have charge of this particular matter, before he can move one step in the matter, will have to take up these three different Acts of Parliament, passed in three separate years, and then settle himself down to an elaborate study of these Acts and their complicated Sections before he can make his way through the jungle even of this minor Statute, which I suppose will find its way also on to the Statute Book. I see no reason at all—there is nothing in the expense—why this Bill should not have been elaborated to four or five Clauses and made to carry on the face of it a reasonably clear statement of what its objects are.
The Bill is required, as my hon. Friend tells us, because, if it is not granted by the House, there will in November of this year be a host of applications from numerous companies for separate Bills for powers to continue the very high charging powers which they at present possess. Of course, that is rather a terrifying prospect for the companies concerned, although it would be a happy outlook for the legal profession and that host of ancillary bodies who accompany them in the Committee rooms here, but what we have to do is to be very careful that in avoiding that we do not give too large an extension. I hope the Committee upstairs will take the earliest opportunity of indicating to the Minister in charge that it will not give an extension of time till 1925, but that the utmost it is prepared to concede is till 1924—another 12 months. What is the position of trade at the present moment? It is one of deep depression, with some signs of improvement—I cannot put it any higher than that—and at the same time we have to face the fact that the competition between ourselves and other ports of discharge is very keen and very severe. It therefore follows that nothing should be lacking on our part to
cut down to the lowest possible minimum the charges on our railways and at our ports. Let me give one instance by way of illustration. There is a vessel of which I have knowledge which discharged at the Port of London within this year 6,800 tons of her cargo at a cost of 7s. 4½d. per ton. The remainder of her cargo, 4,000 tons, was discharged in Hamburg, and she discharged those remaining 4,000 tons there at a cost of 1s. 0½d. per ton. Hamburg always has been a cheaper port than any port in this country, but—

Sir W. RAEBURN: What about the rate of exchange?

Sir D. MACLEAN: Whatever difference there may be, it does not cover that, and, indeed, I think that was taken into account.

Sir W. RAEBURN: I had a vessel there myself lately, and this rate was only arrived at when the mark was at 750. It is now 1,250, and so the 1s. 0½d. referred to would be down to not much over 6d.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I will allow my hon. Friend, for the sake of our common nationality, the 6d. That will not really account for the difference at all, but there is a very severe competition set up, and, of course, we cannot cope with it. We cannot hope to have anything like parity of charge at the docks of the Port of London, or Cardiff, or Hull, as compared with what it is at Hamburg to-day, but my point is this. It is of the very greatest importance that these charges should come down to their lowest possible minimum at the earliest possible moment, if we are going to retain our home and our world trade. The position up till quite recently at some of our ports, of which I have particulars here, may be of some interest to the House. Taking a comparison with the pre-War rates in the South Wades ports—Cardiff, Newport, Port Talbot, and Swansea—that was until a little while ago 150 per cent., and that has been reduced to 125 per cent. I could say a word or two about the further decrease to which my hon. Friend has just referred; I understand it has come down to 100 per cent. as and from 1st June. At the Hull, Grimsby and Immingham ports, 150 per cent.; Garston and Fleetwood, 150 per cent.; Southampton Docks, 100 per cent.; Middlesbrough and Sunderland, 150 per
cent. With trade at so low an ebb as it is at present and the charges as high as these, the wonder is that on the whole the trade has managed to survive at all. That is the real marvel to those of us who are acquainted with the business carried on at our great sea ports. Let us compare those charges, however, with the general position of other factors in business. Wholesale prices have shown a, very great fall. Shipping freights are down. I speak without any knowledge that is right up-to-date, but I do not suppose I am very far out when I say that shipping freights are very nearly down to the pre-War level now, and in some cases I have known they have been under it, but speaking generally they are down to pre-War level.

Sir W. RAEBU RN: Not quite.

Sir D. MACLEAN: My hon. Friend says "Not quite," but I have known cases where ships have gone out below the pre-War level, and are, indeed, trading at a loss in order to keep going. Retail prices, of course, are very largely down also—38 per cent. But the railway charges—and I cannot elaborate that now, although we are dealing with railway-owned docks —have shown little or no response to the public demand for a lowering of those rates and charges. Fortunately, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary was able to make an announcement of a further decrease. Was he referring to the letter of the 23rd May from the Secretary to the Railway Clearing House?

Mr. NEAL: I think that is it.

5.0 P.M.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I have had it put in my hands also, and it is satisfactory to note that the tonnage rates on vessels —that is, dock and harbour dues on ships, excluding the dock rent—as far as the South Wales and Bristol Channel ports, the North-East Coast, and the Humber ports are concerned, are down by another 50 per cent.; that is, they are down to 100 per cent. The House will note, after the intervention of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. A. Shaw), that that is a reduction of the increase, but not of the total charge, so that the reduction of the total pre-War charge is round about 20 per cent. It is not a reduction really of 50 per cent. The actual reduction of the total pre-War charge, plus the post-War charges, does not amount to more
than 20 per cent. There is one other concession which has been given, and that is the way in which they reckon fractions of a penny. They are prepared to give the fraction downwards to the trader or shipowner, rather than upwards as against him, as they have been doing. That represents a favourable attitude on the part of the railways owning these docks, but I would draw the attention of the House that this reduction comes after this Bill has been before the House for some weeks, and the persistent determination of Members in different parts of the House to have this subject discussed. I hope and believe that the railways owning docks, and the railways generally, will take note of this, that this House, or, at any rate, a very considerable portion of it, is determined to seize every opportunity of bringing before the public the powers of the railway companies, and the immense and overwhelming necessity for a reduction of railway and of dock and port charges. I hope and believe that the able and wise men who are at the head of these great national undertakings will do their best to meet this House and the great trading communities, in seeing that that necessity is met as speedily as possible, because nothing could be worse—and I speak with some experience of this House—for railway companies or dock companies than for this House to get into its head that they are not playing the game by the public. Their Bills—very necessary Bills —have been stopped at great expense to themselves, and at some loss to the public. I do not want that to happen again.
There is a new start being made under the Railways Act, and these great concerns are with very great expedition, considering all the difficulties of the case, making their amalgamations, framing their fresh arrangements, and—as I hope and believe, with a proper amount of competition, because that is a most useful thing to keep alive—they are settling down under the new conditions to give as good a service to the public as they can. I say this to them. Let them keep Parliament sympathetic towards them. Do not let the idea get abroad that they will only lower their rates and meet the public when they are compelled to do so. This Bill has in it some points.
which require the most careful investigation by the Committee upstairs. Let all those concerned know that the House is going to discharge its duty fully to the railway companies and the public by the most careful investigation of every Measure of this kind which is brought forward. Let me, by way of illustration, draw the attention of the House for one moment to the first Clause. It is really very difficult for those who have not, in some form, expert knowledge, to find out what the real meaning of it is. It provides that for the railway companies owning docks, proviso (b) of Sub-section (1) of Section 1 of the Act of 1920 shall not apply to these concerns with which we are now dealing. I must, at the risk of wearying the House, go over again some of the ground which my hon. Friend has covered. What is that proviso? Just imagine the departmental head of some business house trying to construe this Bill. He will pick up the Act of 1920, and look at proviso (b) of Sub-section (1) of Section 1, and find that this is what Parliament said by way of protection of the public:
No such modification shall be authorised"—
That really means no increase. That is what it amounts to in practice. The word "modification" there means, for the purposes of our consideration, no increase,
which is more than sufficient to provide, with due care and management, for interest on loan capital and for a reasonable return on share capital, regard being had to the pre-War financial condition of the undertaking and its prospective development.
That is, Parliament said that they were to have increase of charges if necessary. But by what standard are you going to judge it? They are to take the standard of the pre-War position, and see that they have a reasonable return on the capital invested, and the interest on loan capital as well. We want very careful consideration to see that that safeguard is not removed, and something put in its place that does not protect the public as well. The proposal of the Government is to refer my unhappy friend, the departmental manager again, not to this Bill, but to Section 3 of the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919. Section 3 of that Act is a little Act of Parliament in itself. He then has to work out for himself what Section 3 means, and I confess I do not know myself exactly what it means; I
have really not had time to look into it. You have to go through the whole of that very carefully to find out what the Government proposal really is. That is a job for the Committee, and it is a very difficult job for the ordinary Member of Parliament. You want an expert to study these things.
Again I come back to my point. It is not a fair way of dealing with the public in general and the trading public in particular. They ought to know, on the face of the change of law proposed in this most important matter, what the Government really mean, instead of being referred to a Statute which is just as complicated and difficult to construe as any railway statute, and we know what that is. I hope the Committee upstairs will take into very careful consideration that most important point. It is really on occasions like this, when there are present h few Members who take a special interest in the subject, that wide, sweeping changes in the law take place of vital importance, not to special classes in the country, but to the whole community. If our shipping trade goes, or is unduly hampered, the whole country suffers, and I hope that the consideration which the Committee upstairs will give to this Bill will be of such a nature that it will safeguard the public, will not discourage the railway companies, and, at the same time, see that any fresh change in legislation is accompanied by every method of developing trade and protecting the public that this House can possibly afford.

Mr. ALEXANDER SHAW: I beg to move to leave out the word "now." and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."
I move this Amendment for two reasons. The first is that this Bill offers no prospect whatever of that which trade in this country most requires at the moment, namely, a substantial reduction of dock and port charges. The second reason is that, in spite of the excellence of my hon. Friend as a Minister, his Ministry of Transport is really not the proper body to deal with this subject, at all. I know how anxious the House is to give consideration just now to the factors which are seriously impeding industry, and I wish that I could convince the House, as myself am convinced, that one of the most serious factors in
keeping back our trade at this moment is the terrible weight of these exorbitant dock and harbour dues. May I trouble the House with one or two figures? My right hon. Friend opposite has put them from one point of view, and I would like to put them from another. If you take the figure of the Board of Trade index of wholesale prices to-day, you find that the high peak of wholesale figures in this country was in May, 1920. Taking that figure at 100, wholesale prices have fallen to-day to 49. It is true that retail prices are lagging behind, as they always do for weeks or months, but they, too, have fallen, and the cost of living accordingly.
What about harbour and dock charges? These, even with the falls promised to be brought into operation on the 1st of June, will only have fallen from 100 to 80. [An HON. MEMBER "Harbour charges."] Harbour charges will have fallen from 100 to 80, as against general wholesale prices from 100 to 49. As my right hon. Friend opposite has stated, shipping freights, on the whole, are just about pre-War, and I think my hon. Friend will bear me out when I say it is no over-statement, but it is well within the bounds of truth, that the great majority of the round voyages made by British ships to-day show a loss, and sometimes a severe loss. Shipping freights have fallen by about 60 per cent. and in some cases even lower. I might give one concrete example. The pre-War liner rate for grain from New York to the United Kingdom was 3s. 6d. in 1914 and is now 2s. Why should dock and harbour rates lag so far behind? I was very much surprised to hear my hon. Friend on the Treasury Bench make the extraordinary suggestion that the railway-owned undertakings had been undercutting other docks. He did not say it in words, but he gave me the impression, and I believe he gave the House the impression, that their charges had been more favourable to traders and to shippers than the charges of the non-railway controlled undertakings. [An HON. MEMBER: "Pre-War."] Ah, pre-War; that is a very important qualification, because if you take the present position—and I have here in my hand a document which shows exactly what is that present position—you will find that railway undertakings are amongst the worst sinners upon the whole. The charges they make are very considerably
in excess of the charges made by statutory undertakings. Railway undertakings have their own difficulties. I admit that; and I do not come here in any spirit of hostility to them, or say that these undertakings, whether they be railway-owned or owned by statutory bodies should not have fair play. But I do wish to point out to the House that some of these are still 150 per cent. above pre-War level in their charges, and that even in the case of the most extreme reductions which have been—not made, it is true, but, promised—the reductions are only some 20 per cent. of the total charges which have been in operation since the 1920 high water mark.
A concrete case was given by my right hon. Friend opposite. May I give two other cases of vessels within my own personal knowledge'? If any hon. Member would like to go into the matter, I have brought here the actual accounts, the actual bills rendered, and so on. The first was a vessel of 5,190 tons, loaded at Middlesbrough. It took in 1,465 tons, and the total charges were £1,034 9s. 2d. If that vessel had loaded at Antwerp the charges would have totalled only £419 3s. 4d. If she had loaded at Hamburg the charges would have totalled only £200 10s. 1d. It has been suggested that Hamburg is an unfair comparison. So I will leave Hamburg out of it altogether. I would point out that there is an added burden on each ton of cargo loaded at Middlesbrough, as compared with Antwerp, of no less than 8s. 4½d. The hulk of that excess is composed of port charges and clock dues. Take the case of the Clyde. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Sir W. Rae-burn) represents it. On this question the authority there shows a magnificent example to other dock undertakings. If other undertakings of the sort were anyway near so well and economically managed as the Clyde is, I should not be rising to-day to move the rejection of this Bill.

Lord E. PERCY: Is the tonnage of the vessel referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman the registered tonnage?

Mr. SHAW: Yes, the vessel was of a tonnage of 5,190. These charges in the loading of a vessel make it very difficult for the exporter of steel and iron. Turn the thing about, and take the actual case of a vessel discharged in this country,
shall I say the Port of London. In London here is a vessel discharging 3,200 tons of cargo, and the charges for that work out at 9s. 10d. per ton. The vessel went across to Hamburg and discharged there 2,000 tons and the charges were Is. 4d. per ton. That means a handicap as against London of 8s. 6d. per ton.
The House, I know, sees the grave bearing which figures of that kind have upon our export trade. That is the kind of competition that the iron and steel trade particularly have to meet. One heard the other day here in this House of contracts given by the Government of India for steel constructional work. The slightest difference or advantage in making these great contracts means either employment or unemployment for thousands and tens of thousands of our people—a few shillings a ton makes the difference between getting the contract and losing it. Employers and men in the great steel industry have made great sacrifices. No one realises more than I do the great sacrifices which have been made. The sacrifices I say have been made by men as well as employers. A deputation, I am informed, though I was not present on the occasion, came in March to the Chamber of Shipping from the iron and steel traders of the country. What they said was this in effect:—
We have talked the matter over with our men and they have played the game. They have come down to a wage which we are sorry to have to ask them to take, but they are loyally co-operating with us in the task of getting back British trade.
The chamber of shipping told the deputation that shipping freights were down to a level which was unremunerative, and that losses were being incurred. They looked into the whole situation. Then they said, "Let us co-operate together to cut down some of the charges which have not yet come down; those that remain at the peak level of the boom period of 1920." They consulted together, with the result that my hon. Friend has mentioned. Together they approached not the Ministry of Transport, which is singulary heedless and singularly ineffective in this matter, but they approached direct, the great railway companies. This trade is worked on very fine margins, and it is very unsatisfactory to know that before it leaves the shores of this country British steel, sent away in a ship from Middlesbrough, should be handicapped to
the extent of 8s. 4½d. per ton as compared with Belgian steel which is sent. abroad from Antwerp. Look where you like. Every business to-day is struggling to reduce its cost, and there is great suffering in the process of reducing costs and getting back to an economic level. As the hon. Gentleman has said, we cannot go on bolstering up one business after another. Each trade must stand on its own feet and have the incentive to struggle for economy, and, moreover, they have to realise that if they do not they will go under, whether or not they like it.
What about the docks? They have not been feeling the draught. They have not had this incentive to economy, a hard school though it be, that brings things down to an economic level. They have had in my hon. Friend (Mr. Neal) who sits on the Treasury Bench, a benevolent mandarin under whose ample umbrella they could shelter from the severe, although 'salutary, blasts which have blown on other people. Parliament, by special favour of emergency legislation, has placed these great dock undertakings in a very special position, and I would submit to the House that Parliament is entitled, when a Bill like this comes before it, to make provision both as to the period in which this entirely exceptional legislation shall operate, and the conditions under which the operations shall be conducted. I hope my hon. Friend will not persist in pushing the Second Reading of this Bill. If he does, I hope that he will bear in mind certain suggestions which I now venture to make.
The first is this: I wish to support what was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) and that is that the whole of this exceptional legislation should have a period put to it. You can make the period of the Bill merely 12 months. That is all you are committed to. My hon. Friend himself told us that that was the limit of the Government's obligations. Make it 12 months in the condition of affairs which is shifting and where prices and costs are falling! We should leave it to the House of Commons, and give the House a chance 12 months after this to say what action it desires to take upon a review of the facts then available. The House of Commons will never refuse powers of the kind so long as they are reasonable, and extended only to a reasonable period.
That is, then, my first suggestion: that the period for the operation of the Bill should be limited to 12 months. The second suggestion is this: that no Order should be made by the Ministry of Transport for a greater period of operation than six months. We are not living in a stable world. We are living in a world where costs are falling from day to day, from week to week and from month to month. The House knows that once an Order of that kind is made by the Ministry, the tendency is for that Order to go on automatically and for the Ministry not to bother to look into the descending scale of costs. I am speaking of our past experience. Therefore I make the suggestion that the matter should be brought up for review every six months, and that no Order made by the Ministry should have a longer life.
The third suggestion I know will. be welcomed by my hon. Friend, because he says something very like it is already in operation—that before any Order is made at all there may be a thorough inquiry applied to it, and that the onus should be clearly upon the authority or undertaking which asks for these exceptional powers to prove its case; that there should be given proof of that case, and that there may be given to the proper interested parties a right to be heard either by the Minister or someone with his authority. For once this Bill passes into law, these concerns may have a clear run of the present enormous charges that are crippling industry until 1925. Experience justifies the conclusion that they may go on having a long run in their charges until 1925, and I will tell the House why experience justifies that observation. It was only after the great trading and shipping interests of the country got together and bestirred themselves that anything was done. So long as the matter was left in the hands of the Minister of Transport the position was absolutely hopeless. "Oh, but," says my hon. Friend with that charming manner we appreciate in him, "all you have to do is to come to the Ministry of Transport and make a complaint." What is the position? A small shipping company or a small trading concern, in the grip of a railway port, stands up against that railway company and makes complaints against it to the Minister of Transport. The Minister persuades that
little concern to take upon its shoulders work which he ought to be doing in the public interest, and work which I venture to say he has neglected to do, and left to the traders and shipping interests themselves in a great combination of effort to do.
I would recall to the mind of the right hon. Baronet whom I hear behind me that this is one of those Bills which can do real good or be a real detriment to trade. I might remind him of something which, I think, everyone knows, and with which he in particular agrees:
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman that this Bill is really one that can cure ills or can perpetuate them. This Bill is intimately concerned with the prosperity and trade of the country. I will deal quite briefly with my second point, which is that the Ministry of Transport is not the proper body to which these powers should be given. My right hon. Friend opposite has quoted, I think, from the letter which Sir Eric Geddes, the author of the Ministry of Transport, sent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 18th November, 1921. The House will remember that Sir Eric Geddes said he had come to the conclusion that there was no justification for retaining a separate Ministry of Transport, especially having regard to the existing financial stringency. I would ask my right hon. Friend on the Treasury bench has that existing financial stringency disappeared? Here is Sir Eric Geddes saying that, owing to financial stringency, it ought to be abolished. Here we are in view of the same financial stringency proposing even to add to it! We are passing a Bill to prolong and justify the existence of the same Ministry of Transport until at least the year 1925. Sir Eric Geddes' colleagues on the Committee, who were thus left to get on as best they could without him, expressed themselves as being in entire agreement with him on this point, and they declared that in all the circumstances they agreed with the view expressed in the letter of Sir Eric Geddes, that economy and efficiency would be better attained if those functions were handed over to the Board of Trade. In their second Report they expressed the opinion that "The Ministry
of Transport should cease as a separate Ministry, and that its functions should be transferred to the Board of Trade." Therefore, sentence of death was passed on the Ministry of Transport in the name of economy and efficiency, meaning economy not only departmentally but in the carrying on of the trade of the country. Therefore, in the name of economy and efficiency, I ask the House to insist upon a withdrawal of this Bill, or, at any rate, upon a substantial amendment of it. Sentence of death having been passed on the Ministry of Transport by its parent, the Parliamentary Secretary opposite now comes down to the House and, with a bland countenance and a specious air of immortality, moves a Bill without a word of apology which takes it for granted that the Ministry which has been condemned to death shall remain alive until at least the year 1925. The House knows perfectly well how these War Departments fight for life, and I hope will reject this Bill which is an attempt on the part of the Ministry of Transport, which consists of very able men respected by everybody, to bolster up the existence of their own Department.

Major BARNES: I beg to second the Amendment.
There is an argument which is always used by the Minister in charge whenever he is introducing a Measure of this kind, and it is one which always commands the assent of the House. I recollect a good many of the hon. Gentleman's speeches in introducing Bills of this character, for he always points out that we have a number of great utility undertakings performing very useful services and that it would be false economy not to equip them with full powers. We do not want to be penny wise and pound foolish. We are told that what we gain on the swings we should certainly more than lose on the roundabouts, but that ought not to prevent us from giving the very closest attention to any Measure which gives further powers to undertakings or gives them any opportunity or facility for increasing their charges.
It is quite true that these undertakings are not carried on under the ordinary conditions of business. You do not simply leave them to fight it out in an ordinary competitive way because, owing to their position, you are bound to put them on
a different footing from an ordinary business undertaking. That is the special danger to which special undertakings are subject. They get a measure of protection; they are allowed to make charges which are not always closely related to their service; they are given facilities and opportunities for increasing their charges, and there is a natural tendency to make themselves safe without regard to the effect that those charges may have upon the trade of the country. A Measure of this kind is really a proposal to allow what you might describe as private taxation.
The people of this country are burdened in at least four ways. Firstly by the very high load of Imperial taxation; secondly by the way in which local taxation is increased; thirdly by the high prices to which the people are subject; and fourthly by the increase of charges made by these public utility companies. We have a whole series of this sort of Measures passed by this House. Here we are dealing with the charges which may be levied by those who are in control of docks and harbours for the services which they have rendered. Bills of this kind have been passed not only for such undertakings as these, but also for other undertakings rendering public service. We have Bills enabling gas companies, water companies and railway companies to increase their charges, and I understand that the Minister in charge of this Bill intends to follow up this Measure by one enabling canal companies and similar comppanies to raise their charges.
We have also before us in this Session the Electricity (Supply) Bill which will give electricity undertakings powers even greater than are given either to railway companies, or any other kind of public utility companies. The net result of the whole series of these Bills is that the country is not only being subjected to a heavy burden of public taxation, but also to a heavy burden of private taxation by the powers given, and therefore it behoves those who wish to bring down the cost of production to give their very closest scrutiny to these Measures as they are presented to us. Every charge of every kind enters into the cost of production. For a considerable period of this Parliament, the attention of the House and the country was directed to that element in the cost of production which arises out of the payment of labour wages and it
was said, "Wages must come down before we can compete because they are too high."
It was said that this was essential in order to improve trade. Now wages have come down, and I think it is time that attention was directed to the fact that the wage cost is not the only element in the cost of production, and that such charges as are permitted under the powers given in such Bills as the one before us are themselves a very important element in the cost of production. That does not mean that anybody who has taken any part in the opposition to this Bill has any desire at all to see ether railway, dock, or harbour undertakings put into such a position that they cannot carry on, and there is no intention of depriving them of a sufficient revenue to meet their expenses. I do not approach the question from that point of view. What is the history of this Measure? It is brought in because of the position in which dock and harbour undertakings, which are in the possession of railway companies, find themselves.
In 1920, a Measure was passed dealing with docks and harbours and giving certain powers in respect of their charges. The undertakings of ports, harbours, docks and piers were dealt with, but railway companies were not included because they had sufficient protection under the Ministry of Transport Act. Under that Act the Minister of Transport had power to fix the charges for a period of three years and six months from the date of the passing of the Act. It was passed on the 15th August, 1919, and, therefore, those powers continue until the 15th February, 1923. I understand the position is, that the ports, harbours, docks and piers, forming part of the undertakings of a railway company, came under the operation of the Ministry of Transport, in so far as they were taken possession of by the Government.
Such undertakings as were outside those belonging to the railway companies had not such protection, and it was found necessary to pass the Harbours, Docks and Piers (Temporary Increase of Charges) Bill. That Bill extended until the 15th February, 1923, and I understand that date was chosen so that the powers
under that Act might come to an end at the same time as the powers given under the Ministry of Transport Act. What are the proposals of the present Bill? The first is to extend the original Act from February, 1923, to February, 1925. We might have hoped that by the 15th February, 1923, we should have reverted to normal conditions, and that we should have been able on that date to go back to the practice and procedure of pre-War times.

Sir F. BANBURY: Wages as well?

Major BARNES: I am not now dealing with the question of wages, and I do not intend to be drawn along that alluring path. I am now dealing with the way in which the undertakings of this Bill were carried on. In the opinion of the Government that is not so. They think it necessary for two years longer that the powers in respect of charges which these undertakings may make shall be vested in the Ministry of Transport rather than in this House. The Minister tells us that if he does not get this Bill there will be something like 40 Private Bills which will have to come before Parliament next year.

Mr. NEAL: Over 80.

Major BARNES: But what is going to happen at the end of these two years? The same situation will arise, and the Minister has not given us any indication as to how it is to be avoided. He desires to avoid the congestion in 1923–24 by putting it off till 1925–26. I quite agree that that is in consonance with the general policy of the Government. In one or two Bills they have lately brought before the House they have entered into financial obligations the meeting of which they propose to leave to their successors. I can quite understand their doing so. They may want to avoid trouble in the coming year. But that does not get rid of the difficulty, because any advantage the procedure may present, so far as the Government are concerned, would be a serious disadvantage to other people. They want the review of the question raised by this Bill to be undertaken not by the House but by some tribunal or some department quite outside the House. Sooner or later we shall be called upon to make a choice between the two evils. Celerity may be obtained in some directions by removing questions of this sort from the consideration of this House,
but there are great disadvantages in that procedure when it is remembered that Bills of this kind are really taxing Bills. They impose charges on the public—charges which are quite as real as charges which can be included in any Finance Act passed by this House. There is no difference really between the sovereign one pays to the Income Tax collector and that which one pays to the railway company. When accounts are balanced up, the one has to be deducted quite as much as the other. Whether we give powers to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to tax us or whether we give powers to the chairman of a railway company to charge us, the effect is the same in both cases. Our pockets are depleted. Therefore, to remove these Bills, which really are taxing Bills, from the purview of a Committee of this House and to send them to a tribunal or Department is to pursue a policy the evils of which are greater than any advantages that may be presented. So much for the question of extension.
There is more than that in this Bill. It is not simply a question of extending the Harbours, Docks, and Piers Act as a whole and of giving such facilities as are suggested to all these undertakings. This Bill deals especially with the undertakings that belong to railway companies. Its main Clause, Clause 1, removes these undertakings from the operation of the proviso in the original Act. That proviso has already been brought to the notice of the House. One cannot believe that in endeavouring to rid themselves of it the railway companies do not regard its omission as of some advantage to themselves. What were the conditions laid down in the original Act? They dealt with two classes of undertakings—those that were carried on for no purpose of profit but for the services they rendered, and in regard to these the House laid it down as a condition for increasing the charges of the company that the charges should be limited to what would be sufficient to enable the undertakings to be carried on without loss. Further, the Act dealt with those other undertakings which were carried on for a profit, and it laid it down that those which were carried on for profit should not be allowed to make charges which would give them more than the interest of their loan capital and a reasonable return on their share
capital, having regard to their pre-War financial condition and their prospective development. That was the wisdom of the House in 1920. Now the railway companies come along—I understand the Minister has told us that this Bill is the result of representations made by them—and ask to be relieved from the operation of that proviso, and the Minister has given us reasons for so relieving them.

Mr. MURROUGH WILSON: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman suggesting that the railway companies had increased powers of charging under the Act of 1920?

Major BARNES: I think it is perfectly clear that such powers as the railway companies have till February, 1923, they get under the Ministry of Transport Act. The Orders made under that Act do not come under the operations of the Harbours, Docks and Piers Act. But they now ask to be put in a category by themselves and to be relieved of restrictions which are imposed on ordinary private undertakings. The Minister has put forward reasons why that should be done and one reason is that, in the case of similar undertakings which are complete by themselves and are not linked up with any of these docks, it is possible to ascertain the amount of capital that has been invested in such undertakings, and therefore it is possible to calculate what is a reasonable return on it and so work under the proviso. But the Minister said that that was not possible in regard to undertakings linked up with railway companies, because the companies do not know what money they spend on their docks, harbours, ports and piers. He asked us to believe that the accountancy of a railway company is so inadequate for the task which has to be discharged that it is not able to allocate its capital in that way. The Minister says he has come to that conclusion as a result of very careful inquiry, and, of course, the House will accept it as a perfectly honest conclusion. Still it is very difficult for anyone to believe it who has had anything to do with railway accounts. At all events, if the capital is not so allocated, the accounts can be supplied. When this House passed the Railway Companies Returns Act in 1911, a form of account was laid down on which the railway companies had to return their receipts from undertakings of this kind,
and that clearly separated such receipts from the receipts for general railway workings. It may be that such a division of their income does not necessarily apply to a division of their capital, but still it seems to me not to be impossible to make a computation of that kind and to leave them under the operation of this proviso.
I should like to ask the Minister this question. Before he brought this Bill in, did he ascertain what in fact has been the result of the working of the railway docks, ports and harbours? Can he tell the House if accounts were taken for last year and what the result was? Would it be true to say that, while there has been a loss on the working of the railways, while there has been a decrease on the net receipts from the working of the railways, there has been an increase in the net receipts from the working of the docks and harbours? Such information would be of some interest to the House, and it would enable us to form our own judgment as to whether a good case had been made out for this Bill. One other point was made by the Minister of Transport which I think ought to be cleared up. He said, "If you do not pass this Bill, if you do not give these undertakings these facilities, if you do not enable them to make these increased charges, there will be a loss on the undertakings, and that loss will be thrown on the general railway world and will have to be borne in the shape of increased charges by those who use the railways." I have some recollection—it is growing rather faint, I admit —of a discussion which took place in Committee on the Railways Bill. If I remember rightly, there was a good deal of Debate on the question whether the railway companies, having their standard rates fixed, were to be allowed to charge to railway working losses which they might make on ancillary undertakings.

Mr. NEAL: That power does not operate at present.

Major BARNES: The Section which dealt with the adjustment of charges provided that when fixing the charges necessary to produce, a standard rate, the tribunal should take into consideration the charges with respect to the business carried on on ancillary undertakings.

Mr. NEAL: That is to have effect after the groups have been formed, and that
will be after this Bill has ceased to operate.

6.0 P.M.

Major BARNES: This Bill is to go on for two years, and at the end of that time perhaps the tribunals will not allow any losses on the docks to be thrown on the railway. Do I understand the Minister to say that the object of this Bill is to allow the railways to do in the interim period that which this Bill is intended to prevent in the future. If so, it does not appear to me that the case for the Bill is fortified to any extent. My hon. and learned Friend opposite who moved the rejection of the Bill gave indications of what could be done if we were not successful in carrying that Amendment, and pressed on the Parliamentary Secretary some considerations for the Committee. I hope that those considerations will be given due weight, and none more than the last one that was made, namely, that in dealing with matters of this kind the onus should be thrown upon the people who want the increase, and not upon the people who want the reduction. I believe there is a general feeling throughout the country that the task of getting a reduction before the Rates Tribunal is one that is too heavy even for well-organised bodies of traders. I would press the hon. Gentleman, during the passage of this Bill through Committee, to do something to make it easier for those who are carrying on the great industries of this country, and who are suffering by reason of the high transport charges both of the railways and at the ports, to get a real consideration of their case and a real reduction, not too long delayed, of the burden under which they lie.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: It seems to me that in this Bill the House has to consider, not merely the interests of the railway companies on the one side or of the shipowners on the other, but the interests of the public as a whole. There has been, I think, sufficient evidence to convince every Member of this House that nothing is retarding the recovery of the trade of the country more than the very high dock charges and freight rates that are being imposed upon the industry of the country at the present time. If we really want to do something to facilitate a recovery of trade, to get employment for people who are anxious for employment, to bring down
prices, we must manage somehow or other to reduce the very heavy charges which are levied upon industry at the present time by those interests which have the power to fix those charges. Above all things, it is a question for the public. In the old days, the front Government Bench was regarded by the whole of the House as being the depository of the public interest. We looked to the Ministers on that Bench to see that the public interest was not sacrificed in any bargain that was struck between two competing vested interests. That certainly used to be therolô of every Minister in the House. Now, after the Railways Act and after this present Measure, we begin to wonder whether putting the protection of the public solely into the hands of the Government is altogether wise, and whether the ordinary Member of Parliament must not himself attempt to see what is being done in these small Acts of Parliament, and to see for himself that the public is being protected from the deals that are arranged between the great financial interests in the country. The purpose of this Bill is quite simple. The business portion of the Bill is quite simple. It is to enable the railway companies next February to keep up their present high dock rates upon all goods shipped at the various docks in this country. If this Bill were not passed, dock rates would come down to the legal maximum which the companies were entitled to charge, but in many cases did not charge, before the War.

Sir W. RAEBURN: Which dock rates would come down?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: All dock rates would come down to the legal maximum. Some may be at the legal maximum now —I do not know; but, if this Bill were not passed, we should be back again in the position in which we were before the War.

Sir W. RAEBURN: Does the hon. and gallant Member know that most dock companies have powers far beyond the 1919 Act?

Colonel WEDGWOOD: I know that the legal maximum was far beyond what they charged. If this Bill is not passed we shall merely return to that.

Sir F. BANBURY: That is not so.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir Edwin Cornwall): It will be better to let the hon. and gallant Member make his speech.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: if this Bill is not passed, the railway companies will be in the position of having to go back to the legal maximum rates which they were empowered to charge before the War. If that is not so, I have misunderstood the hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill. Therefore, this Bill is introduced, just as the Railways Bill was introduced, in order to enable the railway companies to get over the difficult period and to keep up their charges more than they otherwise would have been able to do, in spite of the fact that the community as a whole has to pay those charges. I think that in the case of the railways and of the docks the Government gave far too much away to the vested interests. They have not got the best possible terms, but have made terms which have been obviously sc beneficial to the railway companies that the ordinary shares in many of the companies have almost doubled in value since the Railways Act was passed. So far from driving a hard bargain, they consented to a bargain which was of enormous advantage to the railway companies. It may be that, in this matter of the docks also, they are accepting a bargain which is equally beneficial to that vested interest. Therefore, we must look at this particular Bill with the more care, seeing what has been the result of the previous bargain.
There is no doubt that the Railways Act has kept up freight rates, and there is no doubt that this Bill is intended to keep up dock rates. In both cases the public interest is to get the lowest possible rate. In the old days there was a certain amount of competition. One dock could bid against another; they could give specially low rates and so get more traffic; and, under the stress of competition, the public got the best bargain that they could get. The more the competition, and the lower the rate, the better it was for the consumer as a whole. But those days are over. We finished that sort of competition when we passed the Railways Act. Now, if you go to South Wales, where the tinplate workers are out of work on account of the freight and dock rates, you find, from one end of South Wales to the other, that every single dock, and, I believe, every single
shipping facility is in the hands of the new Great Western Railway, which has swallowed up the other companies under the Railways Act. If you go to Hull, you find the Hull and Barnsley and the North Eastern lying down together like the lion and the lamb, bound together by a firm and competent monopoly. All over the country, under this new grouping, the docks and the shipping facilities are being got into the hands of a narrow ring which has monopoly powers. That was realised by the Government and by the public, but it was assumed that under the Railways Act it was possible to deal with these monopolies, and prevent them from unduly taxing the public, by the complicated machinery of saying that, if the costs of running were reduced, a court should determine by how much the freight rates and charges and fares should likewise be reduced. Four-fifths was to go to the community, and one-fifth to the railway companies. The House will realise that the costs of running the railways have come down very materially, not only in wages, but in other ways, and there has been no reduction so far in freight rates, and no reduction in fares. Practically every reduction that has been in force has been voluntarily made by the monopolists, because they believed it to be in their interests. No reduction has been made against the wishes of the monopolists. No reduction has been forced upon them by the Government as a result of inquiries into the savings made.

Mr. NEAL: I hope the hon. and gallant Gentleman will pardon me for interrupting him, but the Government have absolutely no power to force reductions. It is in the hands of the trading community to make their application to the appointed tribunal.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: That makes it all the more difficult for the public, as a whole, to get their reduction from the railway companies at the present time. I think that when the Railways Act comes into force, the Government will be able to initiate an inquiry. I hope that that is so, and then it may be possible to get the rates down, but at the present time we are absolutely in the hands of these monopolists, who can get what price the consumer can pay. It is the railway trust which we have now that really dictates whether trade and industry in this country shall survive.
We have to depend upon concessions made by them, for which we are very grateful, but which we have no right to wring out of them at the present time. The reductions quoted by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. A. Shaw), which they have made in dock rates, show quite clearly that the various dock companies may be persuaded to make small reductions, but they are reductions which bear no relation whatever to the reduction in the cost of living or of running a dock or harbour. They will make some reductions, but we are dependent upon their good will.
The general managers of railway companies are bound to consider first and foremost the interests of their shareholders, and not the interests of the general public. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) would be false to his trust if he considered first the advantage of the community, and only secondly the advantage of his shareholders. It is his business as a railway director to look after the interests of his shareholders first, and we cannot complain if he keeps his rates up at what will give his business the maximum return. We can complain, however, if this House puts more power into their hands on the supposition that they will be kind to trade first. We know that their first duty is to their shareholders, and it is our duty so to tie their hands that the public may have a chance of getting a reduction in freight rates, even though the railway shareholders do not want to give them a reduction in the interests of the profits of their concern. The trade of this country is coming to a direful pass. The monopoly has been formed. The North Eastern and the Great Western have gradually got their hands upon the trade of this country, and here is another Bill which gives them further powers. It gives them powers to keep up their dock rates, and it gives them powers based in a curious way upon what would be a reasonable rate of interest on the capital sunk in the business. We did not have a word of explanation from the hon. Gentleman as to what was considered to be a reasonable rate of interest, and I did not understand from his speech how fresh adjustments could be made in the charges provided that the reasonable rate of interest fell. We are seeing now from day to day a cheaper rate of interest on
money. The bank rate has fallen. Does the reasonable rate of interest vary with the bank rate, or has that anything to do with the reasonable rate of interest?

Mr. NEAL: It is not reasonable rate of interest; it is reasonable return on capital.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Reasonable return on capital. I apologise for not using the right words. Does that vary with the bank rate of interest or is it supposed to be something that is fixed, like the laws of the Merles and Persians? Is it 5 per cent.? Most of the railway companies now are giving a return upon the capital value of their shares of about a 6½ per cent. Is 6½ per cent. considered to be a reasonable return upon capital, or are we to go back to six months ago when railway shares were returning about 10 per cent. on their capital, and is this 10 per cent. considered to be a reasonable return? What is the basis? What sort of interest do you contemplate, and does that rate of interest change as money becomes cheaper. Does it change as you are able to borrow money more cheaply to carry out alterations and repairs, and does a reasonable return depend in any way upon the guarantee which in effect these concerns are getting by the passage of this Act? Instead of being, as in former days, under competition, you have a trust. Instead of being subject to the turn of the market as to what price you can get, you have a Government guarantee as I understand it—an effective guarantee—that you may keep your dock rates up at their present level, and those dock rates will go up if the cost of working goes up and go down if the cost of working goes down. In any case you will get a reasonable return upon the capital invested. That amounts in fact to a guarantee, and wherever you have a guarantee we are entitled to suggest that a lower rate of interest is permissible than what would be normally required if the capital was without any sort of guarantee whatsoever.

Sir EDMUND BARTLEY-DENNISS: There is no guarantee.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: There is this amount of guarantee, that if you find that the cost of operating that dock is going up you are entitled to charge a
higher dock rate, and if it goes down you may be forced to accept a lower rate.

Sir E. BARTLEY-DENNISS: There is no guarantee that you will get the money.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: There is a guarantee that you can charge a price that you had not got before and there is a complete monopoly which would enable you to get it even if there was not any special regulation. Surely we are entitled to ask that a reasonable return upon capital should be considered to be somewhat less than it was in the old days when railway companies were competing more or less with each other and were getting a higher return on the capital invested in preference or debenture shares. I should suggest that money invested in this way, with this pseudo guarantee if you like, was entitled to be placed on a basis of preference rather than ordinary shares, and of course the charges will depend under this Act very much indeed upon what is taken to be a reasonable return on capital.
But there is another point. The hon. Gentleman made it quite clear that it was impossible to estimate the amount of capital sunk by railway.companies in docks and harbours. I think that is very likely correct, but the capital was to be assumed on that account to be the sort of amount of capital which was sunk in other concerns where the capitalisation was known. That is to say, that in estimating the amount of capital sunk in any of the South Wales docks, like Cardiff or Swansea—

Sir W. RAEBURN: Has this anything to do with the Bill? This is a matter for the Rates Advisory Committee and nothing else. It has nothing to do with the Bill.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Surely the Deputy Speaker will call me to order if I am out of order without some new Member doing it.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member for Dumbarton is entitled to raise a point of order, although I do not rule that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme was out of order.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: The point of Order was perfectly correct except that I am not out of order. I beg the House's pardon, but in a very difficult economic
argument it is awfully inconvenient to be interrupted and to get back. We are dealing with figures and it is extremely difficult to deal with arguments like this if I am interrupted over and over again by Members in all parts of the House. I have given way to them about 15 times, and I think hon. Members ought to consider that in maintaining this case, a very difficult case to maintain, they should give me a fair chance. They will have their chance afterwards and no doubt will make their speeches. Let us have fair play all round. I was saying that in the case of railway companies the docks are to be valued by comparison with all the other docks the capitalisation of which is known. There can be no direct estimate of their capital value and therefore you have to have a comparison with some other docks, as I understand it, in order to arrive at what you believe to be the value of these docks. That at first sight appears to be a fairly sound line of argument, but when you come to think of it, is it quite a fair comparison? If you take the Clyde, where everything has been done upon economic lines, where there have been no docks bought out at fancy figures, where the capitalisation is down at cost price almost, where there has been no inflation whatever, you have a very fair parallel to what the capital sunk in the railway docks really ought to stand at. But if on the other hand you take these South Wales Docks, where they bought up the Barry at a gigantic price, if you take your comparison with the Port of London, where all the existing docks were bought up at a high figure—if you take that figure as your comparison for the value of the railway docks and harbours, you are going to have a very much inflated value, and in making your comparison, attention should be paid to the actual cost rather than to a comparison with already watered concerns. Let us know what the real value is rather than risk the whole community having to pay what is called a reasonable return upon capital when that capital is already three times what has actually been sunk in the harbour or docks. Here you see the possibility of enormous charges being made by a monopoly upon the trade of the country. Apart altogether from the merits of this Bill, apart from the desirability of having a Bill which gives an opportunity to certain vested interests
to levy a higher charge upon the community, we shall have to look very carefully in Committee particularly on this question of what constitutes a reasonable return, and more particularly to see that inflated capitalisation is not attributed to the concerns which are going to get a reasonable return.
The last comment I would make, to which I hope we shall have attention paid in Committee, is that this scheme should last for one year and no more. Prices are going down now everywhere. You have already brought your wages down from 16s. to 12s. in these docks. There has not been, particularly in the case of the Port of London, a corresponding drop in the charges. Wages are coming down, the cost of capital is coming down, the reasonable return upon capital is coming down. Let us see that this Bill only lasts for one year—only tics the House for one year—and as it is not an ordinary Bill, but in reality a taxing Bill, levying a tax upon the community, let us see that it is an annual Bill, so that we may know the amount of the tax and be able to revise it as often as we revise any other tax.

Mr. T. SHAW: And leave it in the hands of the Trust.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: The Trust has got us under this Bill for two years. In the interests of the public we should confine that domination of the Trust at least to one year and give us an opportunity, when perhaps another Government sits on that Bench, to look after the public interest and allow the railway companies to make both ends meet by reducing their charges upon the public even though the value of their stocks and shares falls to what it was six months ago.

Sir W. RAEBURN: I have listened to four speeches delivered by hon. Members who have no personal knowledge of the subject—

Colonel WEDGWOOD: They look after the interests of the public, which is more than you do.

Sir W. RAEBURN: And very little knowledge of the ordinary interests of this country. I should like to give a few facts. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir D. Maclean) complained of legislation by reference, and said those engaged in business would find it hard to understand it.
I have laboured under this disadvantage since I came into the House, but there need be no difficulty. Everyone interested in trade has legal advisers who are able to dissect a Bill like this, and to lay before you in quite clear language what it all means. I had no difficulty whatever in knowing what the wording of the Bill meant. I knew the import of the Bill all along. The dock companies never asked for the Bill. They were rather asked if they had any objection to it, and the dock authority, of which I am the deputy-chairman, saw no objection. The large privately owned docks have powers apart from this Bill altogether. They could continue their present charges, and even more, for many years to come. They do not object to the Bill because they feel that there are private dock companies whose powers will come to an end in 1923, which is not so very far off, and we know perfectly well that those minor clock companies will be compelled in self-defence to come to the Government and ask for an extension of their present powers, otherwise they will simply be faced with bankruptcy. No one engaged in business now can have the slightest hope that we are going to get back in nine months to pre-War wages and conditions of employment. The thing is absolutely absurd. Some authorities have had to charge more than others.
I am not going to speak particularly, in what I have to speak, with regard to railway docks, because the railway docks will no doubt speak for themselves. I know their case pretty well. It is somewhat analogous to that of the privately-owned docks. What is the position? Who are the component parts, directors or trustees or members of these privately owned docks? They are not the paid officials. Three of the largest dock companies in this country have as their chairmen shipowners, and we have among the members representatives of almost every conceivable trade in the country. Would not anyone rather come to the conclusion that these men, who have nothing to gain by giving their services to these dock companies, but have a great deal to gain by a reduction of dues, would be rather inclined if anything to study the interest of their trade, perhaps to the detriment of the docks? If you are going to make insinuations, that is the insinuation I should think it would be more
natural to make. These privately-owned docks all along have had as their trustees or directors business men. Does this House believe that these men are not animated with a desire to bring back dues and rates to the lowest level? It is inconceivable.
My hon. Friend, who moved the rejection of the Bill, made some very sweeping charges about dock management. He seemed to think that because these dock companies have these powers that they take no care to reduce the charges, and that they are spending up to the maximum that the law will allow. Anybody who knows anything about the merits of dock management, knows that that is out of the question. The argument that we hear is this: "Wages have come down, coal has come down, prices of stores have come down, why have not dock charges come down?" The reply is simple and plain. Had the traffic kept up to its pre-War condition there would have been reductions in dock charges, but how are you going to give reduction in dues when the falling off in traffic is greater than the reductions mentioned. I will give a set of facts which have reference to the Clyde Trust. The argument that is being put forward is, that if the Clyde Trust, which is admitted to be well managed, only puts its rates up to 061 per cent, above pre-War, while the charges at other docks are up by 150 per cent., that shows that charges can be reduced. It is absolutely fallacious to argue from one dock to another. Let me give a few statistics to show why even the well-managed Clyde Trust cannot give any reduction in dues. I have been accustomed to receiving deputations from all sorts and conditions of traders. They are at us constantly. Only a fortnight ago I was present at the Ministry of Transport, when we had 11 representatives of the Federation of British Industries. Therefore I know pretty well the arguments of the traders. They argued on these lines: "Wages are down, coal is down, the cost of living is down, freights are down, commodities of all kinds are down, and, therefore, dock dues ought to have come down." I will give the arguments which I addressed to them.
This is the position of the Clyde Trust. Imports and exports for 1921, compared with 1914, have fallen to the extent of 4,000,000 tons, or 40½ per cent. The
tonnage of vessels has gone down 20½ per cent. Under the powers granted to us by the Board of Trade we are enabled to charge higher dues. Our revenue in 1921, compared with 1914, showed an increase of 67 per cent., which is almost the identical figure of our increase in dues, which is 66§ per cent. When we come to the question of wages, which is the biggest item in our expenditure, we spent in 1914 £150,000 and in 1921 £314,000, taking into account the reduction of 4s. under the Shaw award from 16s. to 12s. The last reduction comes into operation to-morrow. There is an increase of 109 per cent. above pre-War in the expenditure on wages, compared with a rise of 66⅔ per cent. in dues, a falling off of 40 per cent. in imports and exports, and a decrease of 20 per cent. in tonnage. Other things have fallen, such as the interest on our loans, but one item has enormously increased, and that is rates and taxes. Our rates and taxes have more than doubled since 1914. I am not sure that this item is not very far short of half the whole revenue of the Clyde Trust when I entered it 32 years ago.
What have we been able to do in the matter of labour? The number of men employed, apart from new work, has only been reduced 17 per cent., although the falling off in traffic is 40 per cent. Trade now is fax more spasmodic than it was in 1914. Sometimes we have no grain steamers in the clocks for a week or ten days, sometimes no ore boats in for days. Would any Trust, properly managed, pay off its skilled men to the extent of the minimum of its requirements? Will it keep only sufficient men for a slack week or a slack fortnight? It has to try as far as possible to keep a sufficient staff for arrivals and departures. I should like to hear the comment of traders and shipowners if vessels were held up and kept idle, and the Clyde Trust manager had to say: "We have paid off a great many of our skilled men, and we cannot put unskilled men on to your work, so you must simply lie and wait." That would be a nice sample of dock management. Some of the dock authorities have been paying in the last year more money for idle time than they actually paid for wages. They had to keep on these men, who had really more time when they were doing nothing than they had time in which they were
working. That is inevitable if your docks are to be run. It comes to this, that all the savings you have been able to effect in wages, etc., have been more than swallowed up by the reduction in the amount of trade.
To compare a dock concern with a shipping company or an engineering concern or some other industrial concern is absurd. To say, for instance, that because the price of wheat has gone down so much a quarter, and that freights have gone down to nearly pre-War level, that that is any reason why a dock company should reduce its rates proportionately, is to argue fallaciously. I wonder that my hon. Friend who moved the rejection could have used such an argument The two things are incomparable. What happens if a ship loses money? You either lay her up or you make up your mind to suffer the loss. What happens if a (lock company loses money? You cannot lay up the dock. Where are you going to get money with which to tide over these losses? Nearly all these dock concerns live largely upon credit. A great part of their money is borrowed money, and it was our boast, and the boast of some of the best managed docks in the country, that we were able to borrow as cheaply, and, in our case, more cheaply, than the British Government. No concern badly managed could ever attain to a position like that. What is to happen if we cannot even put by enough for the sinking fund? It means that our credit is at once impaired. I said to some of the traders: "What advantage would it be to you if we had to pay another 1 per cent. or 1½ per cent. for our money? We should be bound to put that extra charge on to the dues. Therefore, we are doing you a far greater service by seeing that our dock concern is properly managed and is solvent, than by recklessly reducing dues in order to try to attract traffic." There is great competition, and there always will be.
What I want hon. Members to understand is that dock Boards are just as much alive as any Member of this House or any member of the trading community to the advantage it will he to trade to have a reduction of clues, but what we are up against are facts, and it is no use generalising and saying: "Freights have fallen, commodities have fallen, why have not dock dues fallen?" The two things
have nothing to do with each other. Will this House be able in my time to alter the eight-hour day to what it used to be? It is not only a matter of the high wages per man, but it is a matter of the additional men who have to be employed because of the eight-hour day. I will take the case of the Manchester Ship Canal. The cost of manning of the locks has increased to the extent of 270 per cent., and that is due to the increased wages, the number of extra men per shift, and the change in the number of shifts. I could give instances from every port in the country. I have particulars regarding Liverpool, London, Swansea, Manchester, and the Tyne, and they all tell the same tale, that the rates are up because of the rise in the cost of wages, the increase in the number of men employed, the heavy taxation and, above al], the enormous decrease in the traffic coming in and going out.
We had a very interesting and lengthy discussion with the Federation of British Industries, who represent most of the traders in the country. They were very much against this Bill. They pleaded that the period should be reduced to one year, and also made a proposition that I should not have thought would come from business men, and that was that there should be a uniform increased maximum charge of 30 per cent. I think we proved to them that a period of one year would only be postponing for a short time all this trouble and argument. 1923 is very nearly here. The big docks do not need this Bill. We have the powers without it, but because we have the powers that does not say that we are going to charge the full amount. It is said that we have been subsidised because we have been able to increase our rates. Of course, there was only one alternative to not being given power to charge over pre-War limits and that is to default. I am glad to say that none of the big ports did in any way default, but some of the small ports have still to make up a heavy deficit. It is impossible for them to give any reduction.
When we compare the ports of this country with ports on the Continent, it was known to every shipper long before the War that Glasgow was a cheaper port than Liverpool, and Liverpool a cheaper port than London, and when you go now to ports where the exchange has gone up to a very great. extent and the disburse-
meats are calculated at the current rate of exchange, you see exactly what it means We all want to send our goods where they can be handled most cheaply. I am not very keen to trade again with Germany, but if you want to get the best value out of a freight you must realise that the German charges are very low. But it is not fair to compare a port like Hamburg with the mark at its present value with a port. like London. Perhaps hon. Members may think that 1924 is a long enough period of extension. In regard to the small docks, they will simply come here and do what they are doing already. The investigation by the Ministry of Transport is of the keenest character. I must say for them that they look into every penny. You have to product your accounts, and satisfy the Department that you really need the powers for which you ask. If the Department be satisfied, the Department grants the request, but our experience in the past has been that we generally got less than we asked. If afterwards we showed that we required more, we generally had our application granted. This Bill only continues existing powers. In no sense whatever can it be called a subsidy. Such a contention is absurd.
It is only to give protection which this House would be bound to give if an individual dock came and said, "Our powers have expired. Our wages are high. We ask you to give us a little longer this power." I am very glad to have had the chance, as I am up against this difficulty every day of my life, of laying a few facts before the House. Anyone who like myself has had to sit on a Whitley Council will appreciate the difficulty of getting wages down. It is the most disagreeable duty I have ever had in my life. You have got to convince these men that you cannot go on paying the high wages, and you are always met with the answer, "How can we live?" What you have to do is not to make big cuts of 4s. or 5s. a week, but to get reductions of about 2s., divided by two or three months, agreed on between the two sides. Those who say that we have done nothing to reduce wages and charges had better come on some of our dock boards and go through the experience which some of us have had and they will tell a very different story.

Sir F. BANBURY: The hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) made a vigorous attack upon the railway companies and upon the Government for introducing the Railway Act last year. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is one of the leaders of the Labour party. I was a regular attendant during the whole of the Committee stage of the Railway Bill, and the most earnest supporters of the Government were the Labour party. They attended in such numbers that they defeated any Amendment moved by other people against the Bill, and they attended day after day from the beginning to the end of the sitting and with one exception always voted for the Government. They took every step to allow the Government to get the Bill. They hardly ever spoke, but they wore there to see the Bill through. So it is surprising to hear the hon. and gallant Gentleman complain that the Government have done all sorts of things to the railways when his own party supported the passing of the Act which he now abuses. The hon. and gallant Gentleman made the extraordinary statement that the railway companies are now getting 6; per cent. on their capital. They are getting nothing of the sort.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Six and a half per cent. yield on the present investment of the capital.

Sir F. BANBURY: On the actual value, not on the nominal value. If that is what the hon. and gallant Gentleman means, I do not think it worth while arguing it. Everyone knows that before the War the return on the capital of the railway companies was something like 4¼ per cent. or 4⅜ per cent., and the railway companies during the whole of the War did not receive the return which they had before the War, while the hon. and gallant Gentleman's friends received a great deal more than they had before the War, as did also a great many other people of all sorts and kinds, and the railway companies only received a less sum in dividends than before the War. The hon. and gallant Gentleman says, "Look at the rise." Yes, but look at the fall. The fall was such that in many cases there was practically hardly any value for the stocks. They went down to very low prices owing to the enormous
wages which were given to the friends of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and the very short hours which were worked. The result was that when the figures were published by the Government up to the end of August, 1921, there were many companies which were barely earning more than their debenture interest. When those figures were made known, of course there was a fall in the value of the stock, because a large number of people thought there was no chance of getting any interest.
The railways were returned to private management. Private management was assisted by the fact that wages fell owing to a fall in the cost of living, but in addition the Scotch companies and afterwards the English companies came to an agreement with their men whereby there was a further fall, and it is owing to the fall in the wages and also, to a certain extent, a fall in material, that the prospects of railways are better now than they were. But the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows perfectly well that under the Act of the Government railways are not able to pay more than they did in 1913, and that if there is any surplus over the net revenue of 1913, which I regret to say yields a percentage on the whole of the railways only of something like 4¼ per cent., which is not profiteering, then 80 per cent. goes to the traders and passengers and only 20 per cent. to the railway companies. Then the hon. and gallant Gentleman alluded to the London docks. He could not have put forward a, better illustration of the futility of his own argument. He says that there was great competition in the old days. Let us go back to the old days. What happened when there was great competition in the London docks? I happen to know because about 40 years ago I was a. shareholder in the London docks. Owing to the great competition in the London docks there was practically no dividend on either the East or West India or the London or St. Catherine Dock. They could not get money to improve or extend the dock or to put in the more modern apparatus which was necessary. The result was that the docks were taken over by a trust and then the charges were at once raised.
If you put an undertaking into such a position that it cannot run satisfactorily, and pay a moderate return to its share-
holders and obtain money to keep the undertaking in proper order, one of two things must happen. Either the people using it must suffer or it will be taken over by the State or some trust, when immediately the charges are raised, as was done in the case of the railways during the War. The hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle (Major Barnes) attempted to meet the argument, which I understand was raised for the Ministry of Transport, that if the dock charges were lowered there would have to be an increase in the railway rates, and therefore it did not make any difference to the public whether they paid more in railway rates or less in dock rates. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said something about ancillary businesses. Sub-section (4) of Section 58 of the Railway Act provides:
When fixing the charges necessary to produce the standard revenue the tribunal shall take into consideration the charges in respect of any business carried on by the company ancillary or subsidiary to its railways, the charges for which are not subject to the jurisdiction of the tribunal, and if in the opinion of the tribunal the company is not making, or has not taken reasonable steps to enable it to make, adequate charges in respect of such business, the tribunal shall in fixing the charges under this part of the Act, take into account the revenue which would be produced by any such business if adequate charges were in operation.
7.0 P.M.
After that the argument of the hon. and gallant Gentleman falls to the ground, and the argument of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport is shown to be true, that under this Bill the public will not suffer in any kind of way because, if there is no reduction in the dock rates, and if the result is that there is an increase in revenue beyond the revenue of 1913, there must be a reduction in the railway rates. One word with regard to the real conditions and the real reasons why this Bill is brought in. Up to July, 1920, there was no increase whatever in the charges of the railway docks. During all that time, that is for six years from 1914 to 1920, the people using the docks had been making an enormous profit. They were not content with 4¼ per cent. on their capital. In 1920, the charge powers were reviewed, and it was found that the charges actually made in railway-owned docks were up to the level of the maximum charges, and that in spite of that a heavy loss was being incurred on the working of the docks as a whole. There is no object in making people work
at a loss; they cannot go on with that sort of thing, and you cannot have proper development under such circumstances. Therefore, while the charges were increased, they were subject to revision should the result be an increase of the railway companies' revenue beyond the revenue of 1913. There is another remedy, however. The Act of 1920 contains provisions enabling Chambers of Commerce or Shipping or any other such body to apply for the revision of dock charges and to be heard before the representative advisory committee. This new Bill does not disturb that practice, which should be adequate for all requirements. Therefore, if these people have a just cause of complaint, they have a tribunal to which they can go.
The hon. and gallant Member for East Newcastle says "Why send them before a tribunal? Why not send them before a Committee of this House?" That would be devolution with a vengeance, if every case had to go before a Committee of this House. How could such a Committee take evidence and judge of a thing of that sort? Without in any way desiring to reflect on a Committee of this House, would it not he subject to pressure from its constituents? Is that the sort of tribunal to which these matters ought to be referred? The hon. and gallant Gentleman said this was a sort of taxing Measure. Would he like the railway companies to fix their own charges? If so, I can assure him there would be no objection on the part of the railway companies, for there would be no taxing charges and no expenses, and no tribunals would be necessary. The hon. and gallant Gentleman would not really like that. Instead of being a taxing Measure, the Bill limits the charges which the people who have invested their money in certain undertakings may make.
I felt that it was necessary to put the true state of matters before the House. The hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, for whom I have a very great respect, and I might almost say a liking, has, I am sorry to say, gone out of the House. I think he has deteriorated since he joined his new party. I have always had not only a liking but a respect for him. What has happened to him during the last four or five months I do not know; he seems to have lost his balance. In the old days, he used to be concerned about land, but now it is rail-
ways also. He seems entirely to lose his head, and to make all sorts of statements which really are not founded on facts. This Bill is a modest one. It is very moderate, and it ought to be passed.

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: I think it would be very unfair on the House to detain it, except with a very few observations. The mind of the House is pretty well made up on this Bill, and the result of the Division will be such as to represent the opinions which have been expressed. As a representative of Liverpool, however, and as Parliamentary Chairman of the Dock and Harbour Authorities Committee, I feel obliged, in the interests of my city and my constituents, to say one or two words. I am in the unhappy position of agreeing with all parties and with none on this question. I cannot imagine the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) and myself agreeing on anything.

Sir F. BANBURY: Oh yes.

Mr. O'CONNOR: I am afraid I have a sort of incapacity for following his lead on this Bill, though I take the same view of the Bill as he does. I agree with the hon. and gallant Member for East Newcastle (Major Barnes) who has spoken of the caution needed in regard to these Bills of railway companies, dock companies or others, which increase their charges, and which should be reviewed with the closest scrutiny. He suggested that instead of an Act of Parliament like this being brought in by the Government those public authorities should be allowed to adopt the ordinary course of bringing it a private Bill. I wonder if the hon. and gallant Gentleman has thought out that proposition? I think the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport said that the number of authorities engaged were about 100 in all.

Mr. NEAL: About 80.

Mr. O'CONNOR: I put it to my hon. and gallant Friend, how is he going to enable these public authorities to reduce charges if he adds to those charges all the gigantic expense involved in carrying through this House 80 private Bills? It is a terrible charge, it is an exaggerated charge, which some day or other, in some form or other, will have to be remedied, to compel these great companies to pay enormous fees to great counsel during pro-
longed sittings of Committees of this House in order to obtain the smallest modification of their arrangements. I regard this as an Emergency Bill; emergency, not really on the conditions which demand it, but emergency because of short period to which it refers. The operation of this Bill terminates after two years. I put it to my hon. and gallant Friend, or to any other hon. Member, however careful and vigilant he may be with regard to the plans of great corporations like railway companies and dock companies, is it right to subject these bodies to the expense of 80 private Bills for the short period of two years? That is my answer to my hon. and gallant Friend.
With regard to the general charge of my right hon. Friend the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) that the Bill is obscure because of its constant system of reference, I quite agree. When he read out that Clause I knew very well that nothing under about 48 hours would have enabled me to interpret it. That, again, however, was irrelevant. The right hon. Gentleman should adopt the excellent example of the late John Bright, who never throughout his life read a Bill through. He found it far easier to trust to picking up the threads and the main points by listening to the discussions than to go through the weird and strange language of either Bills or Acts of Parliament. I rather resent the tone adopted with regard to some of these dock authorities, and especially the dock authority in my own constituency. We have there a number of the leading and most prominent citizens of Liverpool, who give all their time for nothing. Except for a very small interest of the bondholders, the docks of Liverpool are carried on in the interests of the trade and the public, and not as a private profit-making concern. I cannot see why bodies like that should not be trusted to have the judgment to adjust their dock charges to the very difficult position of the shipping and the trading community to-day. Many representatives of the shipping companies are on most of these dock boards, and they are there to see that the charges are not too great. I find a difficulty in understanding how the dock company of Liverpool and such bodies as that would be able to give the comparatively satisfactory wages which the dockers enjoy if they were prevented by the caprice or
ignorance of this House from being allowed to make charges which would render this service remunerative.

Mr. WIGNALL: I feel it necessary to make clear my position with regard to this Bill. We have listened to a good many speeches to-night which seem to have wandered far away from the real purpose of the Measure. So far as my memory goes, only one speech dealt with the practical issues of the Bill and placed the exact position before the House. We have heard some speeches from this side of the House with which I am in entire disagreement. The old proverb says, "Necessity makes strange bedfellows." I am in agreement with people to-night with whom I am very frequently in disagreement. I am in agreement with them because of the necessity that underlies this Bill. I have been connected with dock works and dock workers for the last 33 years. I know something of the difficulty dock authorities have in carrying on their business, and I certainly do know something of the docker's life. I know this, and it is the one thing that influences me above all else, that if you reduce your clock charges, you relieve the shipowner a little bit, and the trader a little bit. You may relieve the general public to a small degree, but as sure as you do that., down it will come upon the dock worker in reduced wages, and he will feel the burden and suffer most as a result. I remember, during the period when the claims for increases in charges were submitted by the dock and harbour authorities, that I sat on a Committee for many long months. We heard statements and examined accounts, which all went to prove that unless these authorities could increase their charges, they could not increase wages in order to meet the rise in the cost of living. And so it continued.
To-day we are face to face with the fact that, unless some provision is made, the dock companies will lose revenue, and they will come to the dock workers and say, "We cannot continue to pay even the wages you are receiving, and you must submit to a further reduction." So it is the toiler who will have to bear the burden at the end. I wish to utter my protest against an attempt to reduce charges which in their turn enable the authorities to pay the present wages. We have heard a statement about the loss
of trading. That applies to every dock in the country to-day. It means that the dock worker is getting only one, two or three days' work a week. If the trade was sufficient to give the man a full week every week, there would be an opportunity, probably, of discussing even a further question of reduction. But when you have reduced wages and reduced earning power, it is a tragedy to those who have to live at the ports. I listened to the hon. Member who moved the rejection of the Bill, and I was surprised at some of the reasons he gave. I could understand a comparison between one port and another in this country, or between North and South, but comparisons between Middlesbrough and Antwerp are unreasonable. I do not know what were the circumstances concerning the cargo to which reference was made. I know Middlesbrough as well as any man. It is a noted port for steel rails. It is certain that shipping would not go to Antwerp to load a cargo of steel rails from Middlesbrough.
I do not know what was the intention of the hon. Member's comparison, whether it was a reference to lesser wages paid in Antwerp as against those paid at Middlesbrough, or to dock dues at Middlesbrough compared with dock dues at Antwerp. The hon. Gentleman did not make his point clear. It is useless to adduce arguments of that kind to show that wages, however high, will affect trade. You can re-duce the wages at the docks to the pre-War level if you like. That will not bring one ship more into harbour. The argument used to-night seems to have been that high charges were keeping trade away. The volume of trade does not exist. I want to make it clear that I represent the transport workers. I know that if this Bill does not pass we shall have a great difficulty later on. It is because I am interested in the safeguarding of the wages and earning power of the docker that I shall support the Bill.

Mr. NEAL: The right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) made certain criticisms of the draftsmanship of the Bill. I am not going to discuss the draftsmanship. That may be dealt with in Committee. The Clause criticised is perfectly clear and will cause no confusion. The right hon. Gentleman—his bad example was followed by the hon. Gentleman who moved the rejection of the Bill—
thought this a convenient opportunity for discussing the continued existence of the Ministry of Transport. If that matter has to be discussed, it is obvious that I am not the person who ought to discuss it. If hon. Members had given the matter further consideration, they would have realised that fact. The economies which were recommended by the Geddes Committee have been more than realised, and as to the question of efficiency I must leave the House to judge. My hon. Friend, who moved the rejection of the Bill, made a complaint which on consideration he will see had no foundation at all. He said we had been sheltering the companies. I suppose he meant the railway companies. He must be aware that we had no power, and have no power at this moment, to interfere with the charges which the railway companies have been making. When the Government decontrolled the railways in August last year they gave up, with the general consent. of the House, and, I believe, with the entire approval of the country, the right to fix railway charges. You cannot have decontrol and abandon the right of the Government to interfere in these charges, and at the same time blame the Government for not interfering in the charges.
It comes singularly badly from those who have had given to them by the Act of 1921 free access to a tribunal established for the purpose—a tribunal which has been constituted and waiting to hear the complaints of traders and of other persons, representative bodies, such as the Chambers of Shipping and Chambers of Commerce—it comes singularly badly from them to hurl against the Government the statement that the Government have been sheltering interests under some sort of umbrella. It is not for me on this question of railways and charges to say anything one way or the other. There is an impartial tribunal established. The road to it is easy and the costs involved are slight. The traders have their right to be heard. I am glad to say that at last the Federation of British Industries have lodged an application, which will be heard early in July. It cannot be said with fairness or propriety against the Government that we have sheltered some railway company or other persons when we have divested ourselves, or invited Parliament to divest us, of any right to interfere.
Let me come to other criticisms, apart from the railway companies. It is quite true that the Minister has had the power under the Act of 1920 to regulate charges. I will give the names of the Committee appointed to deal with this matter. No better tribunal could be selected for the purpose of advising a Minister. The Chairman of the Committee is a distinguished lawyer, Sir Francis Gore-Browne, K.C. Agriculture, our second largest national industry, is represented by Sir Walter Berry. Transport, in the shape of ports and docks, is represented by Sir Joseph Broodbank, who up to a short time ago was an important member of the Port of London Authority. The railways are represented by Mr. W. A. Jepson; the traders by Mr. Stanley Machin, President of the London Chamber of Commerce; and the Chamber of Shipping by Sir Wm. J. Noble. It is on the advice of that important Committee that these matters have been dealt with in the past. I was delighted to hear it stated that no more careful and skilful work could have been done than that done by this Committee.
If the Bill passes, the position will be that every one of the dock and harbour undertakings will come under review by the Committee before February, 1923. You could not leave 80 undertakings to come to Parliament for Private Bill legislation. That would have blocked business in the House and wasted valuable time this Session, and I doubt very much whether you could do it next Session either. The Government have no interest in the matter except the interest of seeing that all the charges are reduced to the smallest point consistent with re-establishing the industry of the country. The Bill provides for that. It calls upon every undertaking to justify its position. I am a little surprised that there should be any attack made on the ground of the Ministry being careless, when the chamber of shipping, which is specifically named in the Act of 1921, as a body which can make representations as to reductions of charges, has never made a single representation with reference to a single undertaking. If I may, as a junior Member of the Government and a somewhat young Member of this House, be allowed to say it, I would state that I do not minimise the importance of the Committee stage of
this Bill. To stand here and to pretend that the last word has been said upon this question or that the Amendments put forward are to be laid aside as nothing, is not the attitude I wish to take. My hon. and learned Friend suggested certain Amendments. I do not think this is the time or the place to discuss those Amendments in detail. They can be much better discussed when their terms appear on the Order Paper and one can take time to consider what their effect will be. We must protect these public utility undertakings which are managed by gentlemen, not for profit, but for the public good, against insolvency. We must protect the interests of the trader. At the same time the interests of the trader is not protected by keeping any of these great ancillary services in a state of impecuniosity. All I can say to the Mover of the Amendment is, that every point raised by him or by other right hon. and hon. Members in the course of this Debate, will receive the fullest and most careful consideration, and I hope the conclusion may be to the advantage of the traders of the country.

Sir D. MACLEAN: We have had a very general statement from the hon. Gentleman that he will take these matters into consideration. Will he answer a specific point? Will he view with favour in Committee an Amendment to limit the operation of this Act to 12 months instead of two years.

Mr. NEAL: I will not commit myself to the extent of saying whether I will view it, with favour or disfavour. An Amendment of that kind would only mean that immediately—within the next two months—undertakers of this description would have to be considering private Bill legislation.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Absurd!

Mr. NEAL: I hope my right hon. Friend will not use the word "absurd."

Sir D. MACLEAN: I know the business so well.

Mr. NEAL: With great respect to my right hon. Friend, I suggest that is not quite the measure of courtesy I should expect from him. I repeat, notwithstanding his great knowledge of the business, that notices have to be given in the autumn for the Bills of next Session unless the
promoters of Private Bill legislation are prepared to take the risk of asking leave to introduce late Bills, in which case they are at the mercy of the procedure of the House. I do not imagine my right hon. Friend, if he were advising one of these undertakers, Would advise him to take that risk. I have said quite frankly to the House that the Government pledge is limited only to one year. There is something to he said from that point of view. There is a good deal to be said from the other point of view. I will keep an open mind upon the subject, and hear what is to be said on any Amendment which is put upon the Paper.

Sir D. MACLEAN: The Bill says that the principal Act shall have effect till 15th February, 1925. My point is, that it should be 1924. You do not require to give notice for private Bills in November, 1922, in connection with a matter which only comes into operation in 1924.

Mr. NEAL: With great respect, my right hon. Friend has mixed his dates.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Not at all.

Mr. NEAL: I must be allowed to make my point, even if it happens to differ from the views of my right hon. Friend. If these charges are to be operative in February, 1924, they must receive Parliamentary sanction in 1923, and private Bill legislation for 1923 must be subject to notice upon the Order of 1922.

Mr. A. SHAW: In view of the fact that my hon. Friend has been good enough to say he will give the fullest and most careful consideration to the specific points that I raise, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

CANALS (CONTINUANCE OF CHARGING POWERS) BILL.

Not amended (in the Standing Committee) considered.

CLAUSE 1.—(Extension of period during which charging powers may be continued.)

In the case of canal or inland navigation undertakings of which possession was retained or taken by the Minister of Trans-
port under the powers contained in Section three of the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919, paragraph (e) of Sub-section (1) of that Section (which continues the powers of making charges directed by the Minister in pursuance of that Section) shall have effect as if for the words "for a further period of eighteen months after the expiration of the said period" there were substituted the words "thereafter until the fifteenth day of February nineteen hundred and twenty-four."

Mr. NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN: I beg to move to leave out the words "twenty-four" ["nineteen hundred and twenty-four"] and to insert instead thereof the words "twenty-five."
The effect of this Amendment will be to extend to the canals affected by this Bill precisely the same period as has just been fixed in the case of the harbours, docks and piers, and all the reasons that have been so eloquently put forward for extending the period in the case of the harbours and docks to 1925 apply equally to the canals which are subject to this Measure. With them also it is the case that private Bill legislation will have to be promoted in the Autumn of this year if this extension be not given. I confess I feel some surprise that my hon. Friend did not insert 1925 in this Bill, as he did in the previous Bill. Some fears have been expressed that the extension may mean an extension of monopoly. There is no possible question of monopoly in the case of this Bill. Canal charges are of two kinds. There are tolls and there are rates. The rates are the charges made by carriers, the tolls are the charges made by the owners of the canal to those who use them. So far as the rates are concerned they are not affected in any way by this Bill. They are controlled only by competition. So far as the tolls are concerned they are affected, but it is obvious that if the canal owners raise their tolls too high the effect must be to drive traffic off the water-way, and they are not likely to do that. In the course of his remarks upon the Second Reading of this Bill the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport intimated that it was quite possible the time limit of the Bill would be too short. He suggested that the subject might be discussed in Committee. If it has not been discussed in Committee that is only owing to the fact that I was unable to be present owing to another engagement of a public charac-
ter. I have therefore taken the opportunity of responding to the hint which he dropped in the course of the proceedings on the Second Reading, and have put down this Amendment, which I trust he will accept.

Sir E. BARTLEY-DENNISS: I beg to second the Amendment. The reasons in favour of this Amendment have already been given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport. It is quite clear that private Bills will have to be brought in and notices given not later than next November, in this case as in the other, if the Amendment be not accepted. I await with some interest the explanation of the hon. Gentleman as to why he put in 1924 in this Bill and not 1925 as in the other Bill.

Mr. NEAL: This is an Amendment to which the Government offer no opposition. The present position with reference to canal charges is different from that in reference to the authorities we have just been discussing. The canal charging powers are those which were in operation on the decontrol of the canals. The Amendment is acceptable to the Government inasmuch as it gives power of revision at the instance of the Advisory Committee. Therefore, on behalf of the Government, I accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. N. CHAMBERLAIN: I beg to move, at the end of the Clause, to insert the following new Sub-sections:
(2) If at any time during the continuance under this Act of the powers of making charges so directed as aforesaid it appears to the Minister that owing to changes in the cost of labour and materials or other circumstances affecting a canal or inland navigation undertaking, of which possession was so retained or taken as aforesaid, the powers of charging are excessive or insufficient, the Minister may and if representations are made to him by a chamber of commerce or agriculture or by any other representative body of traders concerned or by a local authority or by the undertakers, he shall refer the matter to the Rates Advisory Committee constituted under Section twenty-one of the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919, and the Minister may, after considering any report of the Committee, make an Order revising the powers of charging, so however that the revised maximum charges shall not, in the case of any undertaking, be less than the maximum charges authorised by any statutary provision in force immediately before the directions of the Minister relating to the charges of that
undertaking were originally issued or more than the charges which the undertakers were entitled to make at the passing of this, Act.
(3) The provisions of Sections two, thru and four of the Harbours, Docks and Piers (Temporary Increase of Charges) Act, 1920 (which relate to the proceedings of the Rates Advisory Committee, and the employment of accountants and persons and as to costs, etc., and as to applications for an Order, respectively), shall apply to applications for and the making of Orders under this Act in like manner as they apply to applications for and the making of Orders under that Act.
This Amendment carries out a suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary on the Second Reading, namely, that the power of revision should be with the Minister, if the extension of time were granted.

Sir E. BARTLEY-DENNISS: I beg to second the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

WHALE FISHERIES (SCOTLAND) (AMENDMENT) BILL.

Not amended (in, tire Standing Committee), considered.

CLAUSE 1.—(Secretary for Scotland may co aril or suspend licences under principal Act.)

It shall be lawful for the Secretary for Scotland, on the application of any persons interested and after such inquiry as he may direct, without compensation to cancel or to suspend for a specified period any licence issued by the Fishery Board for Scotland under the Whale Fisheries (Scotland) Act. 1907 (in this Act referred to as the principal Act), if he is satisfied that the prosecution of the whaling industry under the licence is prejudicial to the herring fishery or to any other sea fishery.

The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): I beg to move, to leave out the words "cancel or to suspend for a specified period" and to insert instead thereof the words "order the cancellation or the suspension for a specified period of."
The Amendments standing in my name have been put down in compliance with a pledge which I gave in Committee and in consequence of which an Amendment proposed in Committee was withdrawn. The Amendment proposed that the tribunal to be set up to consider whether
or not licences were to be cancelled or suspended should not be the Secretary for Scotland, but a Committee of which the Secretary for Scotland should he a member, including two persons not Members of this House. I resisted that. Amendment on the ground that I thought it appropriate that the person who exercised this discretion should he subject to the control of Parliament. That view found a certain amount of acceptance. It was, however, thought the control should be made even more effective, and accordingly an Amendment was moved, suggesting that an Order in Council should be made before the decision became operative. I thought that a somewhat inappropriate method of attaining the result desired. There was, however, a proposal, entirely in line with the argument I presented to the Committee, namely, that the person referred to should be subject to the control of Parliament, and I undertook on the Report stage to put down an Amendment to give effect to that view, and, in fact, I practically gave the Committee the terms of the Amendment as it now stands on the Paper. The Amendment is in common form, and provides that the Order which the Secretary of Scotland proposes to make should not become effective if within 30 days, during which time it lies upon the Table, the House should be moved to withhold its consent from the Order becoming effective. This proposal carried out my undertaking, and without further parley I invite the House to accept it.

Dr. MURRAY: On the whole, this is an improvement on the Bill as it originally stood. While I am quite in favour of giving the people of Shetland power to prevent whaling in their waters where they believe it is doing damage to the herring fishery, there is another part of the Scottish coast where whaling is carried on and where the people would desire to see some restriction on the powers given under the Bill. This Amendment provides for that to some extent, because it surrounds the action of the Secretary for Scotland with something in the nature of a barbed wire entanglement, and makes it more difficult for him to issue these orders. Possibly the people of Shetland desire that whaling should be stopped. There is a whaling station in the centre of my constituency, and although there is a big fishing population, the people there, so
far, have expressed no desire to interfere with the whaling industry. In fact, they would be very much hurt if the whaling industry were interfered with in those waters. This Amendment gives a greater degree of security to those people who do not desire to interfere with whaling and do not regard it as affecting the interests of the herring fishing. It will secure to them that any interference with the industry in these parts, or in any part for that matter, will be proceeded with with a greater degree of deliberation than was provided for in the original Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made:

At the end of the Clause insert the words
Provided that any such Order shall not take effect until it has lain on the Table of each House of Parliament for thirty days on which such House is sitting, and if either House within that period resolve that the whole, or any part, of the Order ought to be annulled the same shall not take effect without prejudice to the making of a new Order."—[Mr. Munro.]

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

LUNACY BILL [Lords].

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Mr. SPEAKER: In regard to the first new Clause on the Paper, standing in the name of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Sir Douglas Newton)—["Power of Removal of an Assistant Master"]—I think it should be in the form of a proviso to Clause 1, rather than as a separate Clause.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Ernest Pollock): I do not think the new Clause will be moved.

CLAUSE 1.—(Substitution of Master and Assistant Master for two Masters in Lunacy.)

"(3) No person shall be qualified to be appointed assistant master unless he is either at the time of his appointment an officer of the Master or is a barrister or solicitor of not less than five years' standing. The appointment of the Assistant Master shall be made by the Lord Chancellor."

Sir E. POLLOCK: I beg to move, in Sub-section (3), to leave out the word "either."
This is purely a drafting Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In Subsection (3), after the word "appointment" ["appointment an officer"], insert the word "either."—[Sir E. Pollock.]

CLAUSE 2.—(Amendments as to Procedure.)

"(2) It is hereby declared that the provisions of Sections one hundred and thirty-three to one hundred and forty-three of the Lunacy Act, 1890, relating to vesting and other Orders, as amended by subsequent enactments, apply to criminal lunatics."

Mr. DENNIS HERBERT: I beg to move, to leave out Sub-section (2), and to insert instead thereof the following new Sub-section:
(2) Sections one hundred and thirty-three to one hundred and forty-three (in elusive) of the Lunacy Act, 1890 (as amended by any subsequent enactment), shall apply and extend to trustees and mortgagees who are criminal lunatics.
This is the first of three manuscript Amendments which I have submitted to the Attorney-General, and I hope he will accept them. Perhaps the House will allow me to explain the effect of them as briefly as I can. The first of them is merely repeating the Sub-section which I propose to leave out, with slight verbal, drafting alterations, and its effect is to extend the provisions of the Sections of the Lunacy Act referred to to criminal lunatics as well as to what are known as Chancery lunatics. That is a reform which is admittedly required.
The second Sub-section which I am proposing to move is that the power of the High Court to make orders under Sections 135 to 143, inclusive, of the Lunacy Act, as amended by any subsequent. Act, in relation to lunatics who are mortgagees, shall extend to two cases which are not at present covered by the Act. One is the case of a lunatic who is the trustee of a part only of mortgage money and who may be beneficially interested himself in the other part of it. The second case is that where a lunatic has become a trustee of the mortgaged pro-
perty as the result of the mortgage money having been repaid, so that. the estate in the mortgage which is vested in him is necessarily held by him as trustee for the mortgagor, and it provides that in those cases the Judge in Lunacy shall have no jurisdiction. The reason is that the Lunacy Act, 1911, removes this power from the Master in Lunacy to a Judge of the High Court.
The remaining Sub-section which I wish to move is to provide that proceedings in the High Court under these vesting sections shall be entitled "In the Matter of the Trustee Act, 1893"; that is, instead of their being entitled, as they are at present, "In the matter of the Act 53 Vic." something which everybody knows is the Lunacy Act. There is sometimes unnecessary unpleasantness caused by drawing attention to a man who is not in common parlance a lunatic, but is for legal purposes unable to deal with business matters and therefore has his affairs in the hands of a receiver; it is quite unnecessary that he should be advertised, so to speak, to the world as a lunatic.

Sir E. BARTLEY-DENNISS: I beg to second the Amendment.

Sir E. POLLOCK: Perhaps I may explain that I am much indebted to the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. D. Herbert), who has paid a great deal of attention to this Bill and has made use of the great experience that he has had in these matters to assist the Bill. The Sub-section which he proposes to leave out is one which gives the power to make use of what are called the vesting sections of the Act of 1890, and extend them to the case of criminal lunatics. By a rather unfortunate omission in Section 340 of the Act of 1890, criminal lunatics were not included. That leads to considerable trouble in the working of their estates. These several Amendments of the hon. Member are particular and accurate alterations carrying out what, perhaps rather more shortly and also more crudely, was provided for in the Bill. I am pleased to accept them.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: After the words last inserted, insert new Subsection
(3) The power of the High Court to make Orders under Sections 135 to 143 (inclusive) of the said Act (as amended by any subsequent enactment) in relation to lunatics who are mortgagees shall extend to cases where:

(a) the lunatic is a trustee of part only of the mortgage money, and notwithstanding that he is beneficially interested in any part thereof; and
(b) the lunatic has become a trustee of the mortgaged property merely by reason of the mortgage money having been paid off;
and in those cases the Judge in Lunacy shall have no jurisdiction."—[Mr. D. Herbert.]

Mr. D. HERBERT: I beg to move, after the words last inserted, to insert new Sub-section
(4) Proceedings in the High Court under those Sections 135 to 143 (as amended) shall he entitled In the matter of the Trustee Act, 1893.'

Sir E. POLLOCK: I may explain, perhaps, that when proceedings are brought before the Court they have what is called a title, and you say "In re" a particular matter. It so happens that in these proceedings you may have two or more persons. One may be a trustee of perfectly sound mind, who may be associated with another trustee who is a lunatic. Hitherto, in dealing with the matter, you put "In re" the Act of 1890, which is the Lunacy Act. Sometimes it leads to misunderstanding, when the person at whose instance and as whose duty the proceedings are taken find himself dealing with the matter under the title of the Lunacy Act. It is unfortunate and unnecessary. It would be more satisfactory to leave out all possible tinge of lunacy in a matter where there is no lunacy involved, and in what is merely an application by one trustee to have an estate dealt with and to give him certain powers to move the Court where a difficulty has been imposed on him by his colleague having unfortunately suffered from lunacy. Therefore, we want to get the title of these proceedings in the form proposed.

Amendment, agreed to.

CLAUSE 3.—(Short title and construction.)

This Act may be cited as the Lunacy Act, 1922, and shall be construed as one with the Lunacy Acts, 1890 to 1911, and those Acts and this Act may be cited together as the Lunacy Acts, 1890 to 1922.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I beg to move, at the end of the Clause, to insert a new Sub-section:
(2) This Act shall not apply to Scotland or Ireland.
An hon. Member was good enough to point out to me that I had not put that in the Bill, and it would be more satisfactory to make explicit what was intended to be in the Bill.

Amendment agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

OXFORD AND ST. ALBANS WINE PRIVILEGES (ABOLITION) (Re-committed) BILL.

Considered in Committee reported without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.

POST OFFICE (PNEUMATIC TUBES ACQUISITION) [EXPENSES].

Considered in Committee.

[Sir EDWIN CORNWALL in the Chair.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of any expenditure incurred by the Postmaster-General under any Act of the present Session to confirm an agreement between the Pneumatic Despatch Company, Limited, and the Postmaster-General in relation to the acquisition of a certain tube running between St. Martin's-le-Grand, in the City of London, and Eversholt Street, in the Metropolitan borough of St. Pancras, and for purposes connected therewith."—[Mr. Hilton Young.]

Mr. MALONE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman representing the Post Office to tell us something about this Resolution?

8.0 p.m.

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): I shall be very glad to do so. My right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General made a statement in the House with regard to this matter, but I may say this is in connection with the sale of an underground tube, £7,500. This tube has not been of any service to anyone. It was made about fifty years ago, and the Post Office have the opportunity of using it in connection with their new line which they are laying down If that tube were used, the cost to the State would be £11,200, but if a new tube were desired and arranged for, it would cost
£53,500. My right hon. Friend gave a pledge to this House that nothing would be done to interfere with local authorities' rights.

Mr. MALONE: Is the reconsideration of this matter, after the lapse of 50 years, an indication that the Post Office is going to adopt a similar tube to the efficient tube in use in Paris, which enables letters and parcels to be distributed about the city quickly, or is it based on any other reasons?

Mr. PEASE: It is in order that they may make a line through the tube.

Sir E. BARTLEY-DENNISS: Is not this a tube that goes through Newgate Street; is it not for the purpose of laying a telephone line, and is not the cost of laying a new telephone line something like £40,000?

Mr. PEASE: That is so.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

SUPPLY.

Considered in Committee.

[Sir E. CORNWALL in the Chair.]

CIVIL SERVICES SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1922–23.

UNCLASSIFIED SERVICES

MISCELLANEOUS WAR SERVICES (FOREIGN OFFICE).

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £290,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1923, for the cost of certain Miscellaneous War Services.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I daresay the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will make a short statement about this, and I hope he will deal with one or two points which I will put to him. I hope he will be able to tell us that this is really the final demand that he will put on the overburdened taxpayer for the maintenance of Russian refugees. We have had so many of these Estimates that I am almost ashamed to make another speech on them, but I must on this occasion ask my hon. Friend if he can
make any comment on the letter which appeared in the "Times" on the 9th March, following the last Debate, over the name of the hon. Member for Camlachie (Sir H. Mackinder). I do not see him here, although I gave him notice, but, I am afraid, not very long notice, that I was going to raise this question. On the last occasion we were asked to vote sums of money to these Russian refugees, my hon. Friend opposite, acting, I am sure, in good faith, told us that the hon. Member for Camlachie, while acting as High Commissioner in Southern Russia, got into obligations and gave certain promises about the maintenance of these White counter revolutionaries and White officers, the troops and their wives and families, and the Committee, of course, was bound to accept it, and, I repeat, I am sure my hon. Friend made that statement in perfectly good faith. Two days later a long letter appeared from the hon. Member for Camlachie in the "Times" of the 9th March. It gives a very interesting account of the difficulties with which he was faced. I must say he was in an awkward position, and I do not wish to criticise him in the least. My criticisms all along have been directed against the Government policy which led the hon. Member for Camlachie to be in this terrible position, with the unfortunate dupes who looked to him for succour. I will read the last paragraph of the letter:
I see that it was suggested last night that my guarantee extended to Denikin's officers as well as their families. Obviously that was the last thing I had in mind, since my object was to keep these men at their posts, not to offer them passages over the sea. It will be noticed also that I gave no undertaking that these families, and still less these officers, should be maintained indefinitely at British cost, though no doubt it was implied that something would be done for them temporarily.
I may say that I have regarded myself as having been for the time an executive officer of the Government, and I should not now have spoken but for the course of last night's discussion.
I quite respect the reasons for the hon. Gentleman's non-intervention in the, last Debate, although I think, after that letter, the Committee would have liked to have heard his views. However, there is the statement of the hon. Member for Camlachie, and it controverts, it travesties, the defence put forward by the Foreign Office for coming to the British
taxpayer again for these large sums of money for these Russian refugees. Secondly, I would like my hon. Friend to say whether any further negotiations were opened up at Genoa with the Russian representatives there as to some sort of amnesty to allow these men to go home. I have made this suggestion again and again to my hon. Friend, and he has always said that they would explore the possibilities. I know he will give his best endeavours, because I am sure he would like to be rid of this obligation as much as I or any other hon. Member of this House. Did any of the Foreign Office representatives at Genoa raise this question' Because it seems to me we are only really transferring the burden of maintaining these unfortunate refugees from ourselves to the League of Nations, and that means that we will still have to pay one-half of the cost which the Council of the League of Nations must incur. I think that if no negotiations were opened up at Genoa, an opportunity was allowed to lapse. If that be the case, I do suggest that the matter should be opened up at the Hague. The hon. Member who represents the Overseas Trade Department, and who, I understand, rides two horses, one the Foreign Office and the other the Board of Trade, on one occasion speaking for the Foreign Office and on another for the Board of Trade, should be invited to see what can be done in this matter. I do not want to take another opportunity of expressing my detestation of the whole of the policy represented in this unfortunate Vote, for it is a very unfortunate Vote. That policy has been checked late in the day, but do let us be warned not to make any further mistake in trying to upset by force Governments of which we do not approve in other countries. The House will hear more about that to-morrow with regard to another part of the world. I hope. my hon. Friend will be able to answer these questions, and will appreciate the fact that I and other hon. Members deny ourselves any further comment on the matter, on which we feel very deeply.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): I think I can best deal with the second item in the Supplementary Estimate by way of reply to my hon. and gallant Friend. I should like, however, to make this preliminary observation, that
of the sum of money which the Foreign Office is asking this Committee to grant this evening, a very small portion only is what you might call new money. The total sum asked for in the Estimate is £290,000, of which, however, all but £75,000 has already been voted by this Committee, and it is only because the sums in question were not expended in the late financial year, that, in accordance with our practice, I am obliged to come to the Committee again to re-sanction these payments. My hon. and gallant Friend referred to the part taken by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Camlachie (Sir H. Mackinder) in connection with this very vexed and troublesome question of the Deniken refugees. I read the letter of the hon. Member for Camlachie in the newspaper, and I certainly think there has been a misunderstanding between him and the Office I represent. I do not know, personally, that it is anywhere on record, whatever may have been the intention of the hon. Member for Camlachie, that amongst this miscellaneous throng of refugees, the officers were not to be taken in charge and succoured by His Majesty's Government. However, I could, of course, look into that question and ascertain what our actual information in the Foreign Office is.
My hon. and gallant Friend quoted a passage from the letter of the hon. Member for Camlachie in which he says that he gave no guarantee that the exiles would be maintained indefinitely. I am, of course, prepared to accept without any reserve whatever, any statement made by the hon. Member for Camlachie, but whether that be so or not, the Committee will observe that when the Government takes charge of a large number—originally, I think, some 10,000—helpless and destitute persons, and, for the purpose of safety, removes them to Egypt, to Cyprus and to other places within His Majesty's Dominions, whether you have given a pledge or not, you are bound to look after those people until they can be accommodated and placed out elsewhere. That has been our great difficulty. My hon. and gallant Friend knows this because he has followed this question with great interest. We have been at our wit's ends what to do with these people. We could not say to the Egyptian Government, "There you have a certain number of Russian subjects: we are now going to
do nothing more for them, let them loose in Egypt." The Committee, I think, will agree that whatever pledge was given—and I am not aware that any formal pledge exists—it was our bounden duty and obligation to take care of these people, not to treat them luxuriously certainly, but to take care of them until we had disposed of them satisfactorily, and so relieved ourselves of our obligations.
My hon. and gallant Friend says that what we are doing is really to transfer the cost and the burden from ourselves to the League of Nations. In point of fact what we are doing is by arrangement with the League of Nations. We are paying into the coffers of the League, or will do so if we are granted this Estimate, the sum of £150,000, together with a further sum of £20,000 to defray the cost of the refugees during the past month, and £45,000 to defray the cost of their transportation from the places where they are now to those destinations which we trust the League of Nations will be able to find for them. The League of Nations has undertaken this obligation, and the Committee will, I think, agree that we are under a great debt of gratitude to the League of Nations for taking this matter in hand. We can well be grateful to the League for its benevolent offices in this connection for we were confronted with a problem difficult of solution. What the League is doing for the Deniken refugees is a small matter compared with their magnificant achievements in the repatriation of prisoners of war under Dr. Nansen's auspices. I wish these results were better known—universally known. The League has higher duties even than these to discharge, but amongst its lesser activitives, if I may, by comparison, so describe them, I can imagine none more beneficent or more worthy than the repatriation of prisoners of war and captives and the finding of suitable homes in other communities for those who have been exiled by war. My hon. and gallant Friend refers to the method he suggested of solving this problem of Russian refugees—that is, to invite the Soviet Government to grant an amnesty to all these refugees. I wish he had let me know he was going to raise that question. My memory is not perfectly clear on the subject. So far as I remember, all the Soviet Government would consider doing was to send a Commission into the various coun-
tries where Russian refugees were to be found and to select here and there very sparingly such few refugees as they would accept back into Russia. That is my recollection. I have a further recollection that at a later stage of the proceedings the Soviet Government said that they would have nothing at all to do with the matter. I speak with some reserve, for it is a considerable time since I looked into the question. Now a word or two about two other things on the Estimate.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: May I repeat the question I put a while ago as to whether this matter was raised at Genoa or will it be raised at The Hague?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I can only suppose the question was not raised at Genoa, but I could not answer that definitely without consulting with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, or with one of the Departmental Officers who were associated with it, for I have not yet read the whole of the discussion at Genoa. I should think, from what we know now of the Agenda for The Hague, that this subject will not form part of the discussions there. I take the last item. £10,000 for refugees at Constantinople. I think that the Committee are well aware that for a long time matters at Constantinople have been in a state of considerable confusion and trouble. There has been a very large number of Russian refugees in that city, not followers of General Deniken but of General Wrangel. These refugees were on the verge of starvation, and were a source of unhappiness to themselves, and of danger in a sufficiently precarious situation. They were a source of serious-embarrassment to the High Commission in that city. This question was raised at the last meeting of the Council of the League, and the Council were informed that a sum of approximately of £30,000 would be placed at their disposal to enable the League to deal with these unfortunate people and to pay for their transportation to Bulgaria and to other countries. Colonel Proctor and Mr. Childs are the officials in this matter, and they are working under Dr. Nansen's auspices. The Council of the League were promised, through the British representative, that the Government would defray the cost of transport-
ing these people up to a sum not exceeding £10,000.
Then I come to a very familiar old question, that of the South Persian Rifles. I trust that these observations of mine will form positively my last appearance as a suppliant in this matter. The South Persian Rifles have been disbanded. The sum has already been voted by the House. This present sum of £65,000 is part of a larger figure, and only needs now to be revoted. I should like to take this opportunity of bearing testimony to the remarkable tact and skill with which the very difficult operation of disbanding the force was conducted by Colonel W. H. K. Fraser, D.S.O., M.C., and the officers under his command. Before the force was disbanded there was some amount of apprehension that trouble might ensue in Southern Persia caused by the dispersion of a large number of trained and possibly armed men deprived of their occupation in a country of great disturbances. I am glad to say owing to the skill and care with which the operation was conducted by Colonel Fraser and his officers and by that sense and spirit of discipline that they had in course of training these men imbued them with that the whole of the operation was carried out without any trouble. It was a very fine performance. Out of a force of 5,000 only 20 deserted carrying their arms and equipment with them. All the rest of them dispersed to their villages and homes without the slightest trouble to the British authorities in South Persia, and I think that is a very fine performance. I think I have now dealt with all the salient points raised on this Estimate, and I shall be very grateful to the Committee if they will give me the first stage to-night. I am sorry there are no prospects of getting the second stage before the Adjournment, because I think it is very important that we should discharge our obligations to the League of Nations at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. MALONE: I do not think the Committee will look upon all the explanations given by the hon. Gentleman as being entirely satisfactory. I will not repeat the arguments which I have put forward in regard to this Estimate for the last three years, but as the hon. Gentleman has stated that this is probably the last occasion on which he will ask for this Estimate, I want to ask a few questions. I think we ought
to have some further information about the mission of the hon. Member for Camlachie (Sir H. Mackinder). I want to know if he was given any instructions by the Foreign Office? What Department did he represent? This seems to me to be an example of the hole-and-corner manner in which Foreign Office business has been carried out. Instead of sending out a representative of the Government in the ordinary way, a private Member of this House is picked off the back benches and sent off on a very important Mission, in which lie commits the country to an expenditure of hundreds of thousands of pounds. I think we ought to know more about this point before we pass this Estimate.
There is also the important question of the refugees in Egypt and Cyprus. The hon. Gentleman did not tell us what rates of subsistence these refugees are receiving. In Egypt I am told that a man with a wife and three children is getting what is equal to about four guineas a week, and in Cyprus a man with similar responsibilities is getting £3 15s. I would like hon. Members to compare that rate of allowance with the unemployed pay given in this country. An unemployed man here in a similar position with a wife and three children gets £1 3s. per week compared with £4 6s. in Egypt; and although an unemployed Russian with a wife and three children gets £4 6s. every week continuously, the unemployed working man here gets £1 3s. every 13 weeks, and then there is an interval of 13 weeks until he becomes entitled to benefit again. I think this is a most iniquitous proposal, and one which ought to be carefully reviewed now. If the British taxpayer has got to keep the unemployed of other countries as well as his own we should at least see that those who are unemployed in other countries are not paid at a higher rate than that paid to the unemployed in this country.
I wish to make this further observation. A plea has been put forward from these benches that it only takes 15s. to save the life of a person in South Russia. I think if we are to pay money to support foreign people we should at least spend our money in saving life rather than in paying £4 6s. a week to these refugees. Who has decided that the amount should be £4 6s. a week? Why
cannot these people be put on Army rations, for surely 2s. a day ought to be enough. At any rate, £4 Os. per week is extravagant in this connection. Further, I should like to know who is administering this relief and what local organisation is doing it? Does the £4 Os. include the cost of administering and getting out these rations? All this business, to my mind, is very unsavoury indeed. In fact, the whole of the Russian policy of the Government has been extraordinarily unsavoury. This has been shown to be the case all the more by the book which has been written by Sir Paul Dukes, which has added another black record to the policy of the Government in Russia, and which is described as one of consummate fraud and utter corruption.

Dr. MURRAY: I understand that dealing with the Russian refugees has been taken over now by the League of Nations, and that they are doing the work very well indeed. I should like to draw a moral from that, and it is that the Government should have regard to the scriptural saying that he who is faithful in little is faithful in much. Anything which has been undertaken by the League of Nations, however small, has been done very well, and I should like to impress upon the Government that their policy in this connection should he extended to big international affairs, and that not only little things but much bigger affairs should be handed over to the League of Nations, and they would do things far better than the Conferences we have had from time to time. That is the scriptural moral I wish to draw. I would like to ask, where are the great economists tonight? They are here when we deal with what are called doles to working men. If it is immoral to pay unemployment doles to men in this country, surely it is also immoral to make these payments to Russian refugees. Even the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. A. Hopkinson) is not here to protest against this Vote. I would like those economists to come here and apply the same principle to foreign countries as they do to our own country.

Lord ROBERT CECIL: I sympathise with a great deal of what has been said by hon. Members behind me, as to the past policy of the Government with regard to these refugees—a policy which I do not think indeed anyone defends at all. It has been a deplorable policy. We
were rushed into the liability to maintain I forget. how many thousands of Russian refugees, and we did it in a very extravagant way, and under conditions which really promised no hope at all of finality. At the same time it is right to say that the Government apparently are trying to bring this matter to an end. Of course, we accept the statement of my hon. Friend that that is their intention, and I think with that statement there will be great satisfaction on the part of everyone in this country. The Government are going to hand the matter over, I believe, to the League of Nations, who are to make permanent provision for these people, and we hope there will be no further recurring cost. I was glad to hear what my hon. Friend said about the work of the League in this matter. Having some knowledge of that work I heartily agree with. my hon. Friend. It is one of the most remarkable bits of work of the kind ever undertaken, and it is all the more remarkable because it was carried out at rather less than the original estimate of cost. I have nothing further to say except to express my gratification—if it be really true—that we have seen the last of the South Persian Rifles. That has been a very melancholy episode. I never had much sympathy with that force. We were told on very good authority that the disbandment of these Rifles was going to be a most ticklish job, and likely to produce the most terrific results. We were warned that, although we were driven to this terrible step by our financial position, it would be a very serious matter. Now we are told it was carried through without the slightest difficulty and disorder. It is an example of what frequently happens, I am afraid, that those who become identified with a policy regard the withdrawal from that policy with undue suspicion and fear.

Mr. MALONE: May I press for an answer to my question?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I do not know that I can give any further information. The hon. Gentleman spoke of the expense of maintaining the refugees in Cyprus and Egypt. I quite agree with him that the expenses in these cases were on an unduly high scale and far above the average individual cost of the refugees who were taken over by the Serbian Government. But many months have elapsed since I called
attention myself to the disparity in the charges. All is now over and we have ceased to be responsible for the maintenance of these refugees. Then the hon. Gentleman spoke of the danger of sending out on Government missions private Members of the House. He referred especially to the work undertaken by the hon. Member for the Camlachie Division {Sir H. J. Mackinder) who rendered very great service to the Government. The hon. Member for Camlachie went out to South Russia as High Commissioner, and, of course, it would have been impossible for him to receive instructions on every detail of policy that might arise.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow;

Committee to sit again To-morrow.

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE [EXPENSES].

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to the cost of medical benefit and to the expenses of the administration of benefits under the Acts relating to National Health Insurance, to repeal Section two and to amend Section twenty-nine of the National Health Insurance Act, 1918, and for purposes connected therewith, it is expedient to authorise the amount which, under the said Act, will, on the next valuation of an approved society, become payable, out of moneys provided by Parliament, to the society in respect of the sums paid out of the benefit fund of the society, in pursuance of the said Act, towards the cost of medical benefit and the expenses of the administration of benefits, to be calculated as if those sums were increased by interest thereon from the date of payment at the rate prescribed for the purposes of paragraph (c) of Subsection (l) of Section fifty-six of the National Insurance Act, 1911.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

Mr. N. MACLEAN: On a point of Order. Standing Order 235 says that Resolutions cannot be reported on the same day as that on which they have been taken in and passed through Committee. This Resolution passed the Committee stage this morning. It is down on the Order Paper to be taken "this day." I would like to ask whether the interpretation of the Standing Order is that "this day" means "this sitting." If not, is it
in order to take the Report stage of this Resolution now?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope): In the first place, this particular Resolution was brought up in Committee under a Standing Order which would have enabled the Report stage to have been taken at yesterday's sitting. There, is no possible reason under any Standing Order why it should not be taken to-day, even if it had been brought up under another Standing Order.

Question put, and agreed to.

NEAR EAST.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."[Lieut.-Colonel Sir John Gilmour.]

Sir CHARLES TOWNSHEND: As was disclosed by the Debate of last Thursday, the solid fact which remained in connection with the Genoa Conference was the Russo-German Alliance, and I wish to try quite shortly to prove to the House that that is part and parcel of our Near East policy. I think that everyone in the House will agree with me that that Russo-German Alliance, apart from the question of menace of war, has upset the equilibrium of Europe, and, therefore, the vital necessity, as it appears to me, arises for stopping this conflict at once between the Turks and the Greeks. I do not wish to exaggerate. I have never tried to exaggerate, but have only tried to put the point as plainly and as practically as I can, without regard to whether I speak eloquently or not. It seems to me, as a reader of history, that, if we do not stop this war at once, we shall be face to face with the possibility of driving Turkey into the arms of Russia. I have preached that in and out of this House for nearly two years—certainly before I came into the House. That is our great danger. If Turkey should be driven into an alliance with Russia and Germany, there is no one here who will doubt what that means to our Indian Empire, to Iraq, and everywhere else. Everyone must become grave on thinking what the consequences of that would be.
Since my entry into Parliament, and, in fact, before I came to Parliament, I have been, it is not too much to say, upset at
the policy that our Government has adopted in the Near East. When Turkey came out of the War it was a lucky moment for England, and matters would then have been easy for us. The Government know that, but they never acknowledge it. We know what the result was. Austria gave in at once, and Germany about three weeks after. It set the whole house of cards tumbling. I thought, when I came away from, the Island of Mudros at the time of the Armistice, "At least this will temper the wind to the Turks afterwards." Not a bit of it. We have treated them with the most merciless severity. I know the story of atrocities, and I will come to that later. We have treated them with merciless severity, on a par with the way in which we have treated Austria. One would have thought that Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, the Hedjaz, and what not, having been taken from the Turks, Turkey had been punished sufficiently, but that was not enough for the director of our foreign policy. I might have added that we took all of Thrace right up to the shores of Constantinople—really within punching range of their guns at Constantinople—and also the holy city of Adrianople, as if the director of our foreign policy had deliberately intended to create a 20-years' war. Another Alsace-Lorraine question was planted in Turkey. Not content with that, however, the director of our foreign policy, influenced by M. Venizelos and those associated with him, then invited the Greeks to invade Turkey in Asia Minor, I suppose in order still further to exasperate the Mahommedan world, to put the Turks with their backs to the wall, and to make them fight, as they say, on the carpet.
The occupation of Constantinople by our troops appeared to me to be such a blunder that, although I was on my way to America, and had not even thought of coming to the House of Commons, I wrote to the Foreign Secretary and begged and implored him, on the strength of my friendship with him, not to consent to such a mad step. That was a gross tactical blunder, as I told the House, and it was a still bigger political blunder, for it at once lit up the Turkish Nationalist party, and created this patriot Kemal, whom the Prime Minister described as a revolting general. There have been other revolting generals in history. Washington was one. If you come to
think out this question of Constantinople, the directors of our foreign policy have committed, probably, every blunder that opportunity and time permitted them. That cannot be denied. Why should we say things that are not true? I am for speaking out the plain truth. If I am wrong, I hope that hon. Members will get up afterwards and say so. I can only say that I speak honestly what is in my mind. With your Grand Fleet anchored C00 or 700 yards off the Sultan's palace, and with the Dardanelles in your hands, you go and land troops in Constantinople. As I have told the House before, the only soldier I would have landed in Constantinople would have been the corporal of marines, to bring off the officers' washing on Saturday night. What was the result of this landing of our men in a Mahommedan city? The Turks saw that there was no hope, they ran to arms, and the Nationalist party was created. What did they do? The Prime Minister is credited with saying—I do not know whether it is right or wrong—when he heard that Smyrna was occupied: "We have closed the door to Turkey now. If she wants to get out of the windows, let her do it." That was the last straw.
I am talking of the Mahommedan world now. Will not our Government understand that the whole of that world of Islam stretches in a broad belt from Morocco to China, and from Turkestan to the Congo? They are undergoing new aspirations. They are stirred to a great ferment. England is a great Mahom-medan-owning Empire, and let me point out how France has tumbled to that. Marshal Lyauty is one who served at the oar before he took the helm. That is a necessity which our Government will not realise. I have seen so much of it in my years of service. When the Government have sent out governors, they have always preferred the advice and experience of the gentleman in the office with the blotting-paper cuffs. Apparently they do not recollect the maxim of the Roman General Sulla, who said, "He who would take the helm, must first serve at the oar." What did Marshal Lyauty say about Angora? He said, "We do not want want the mess in North Africa that these English are having in India. We must have peace with Angora." And North Africa, as far as I know, is at present as peaceful as Piccadilly.
Let me come to what has been happening of late. We all know what have been the disastrous consequences of our support of the Greeks. It is patent to everyone that when the Greeks carried out their invasion they knew that they could not remain five minutes alone and without our support. With a very much superior army, far greater in numbers and excellently supplied with guns and all other material of war, they at once got beaten on the Sakaria river after hard fighting. It is the man behind the gun that does it always. To me there are only two kinds of soldiers in the world, the good soldier and the bad. If you give a good soldier an inferior gun and everything else, he will beat the man whose heart is not in the right place. I daresay there are many amongst the Greeks who are good soldiers, but with regard to the fighting value of the lot we have not a great opinion. What happened? They were repulsed. They are now thrown on the defensive, and they at once began to dig in, and what they want to do is to hold on to what they have got. There is no doubt about it. Our Government stepped in at once with the idea, I must suppose, of protection, and proposed an armistice at once, announcing also that they would not put pressure on the Greeks. That. means that the Greeks can make themselves thoroughly comfortable, and after three or four months they may say, "We have altered our minds. We mean to stop." Then our officials and the Cabinet wonder that Kemal will not accept such a fool proposition. Let anyone who has served put himself in the place of the Turkish general and say, "We want an armistice. We are not going away. We want to remain here." No one in his senses would grant an armistice. Time after time I have heard it said, "Kemal will not do this, Kemal will not do that." We ought to hear Kemal's side of the question. At the beginning of this month Kemal proposed to have a conference at Ismid. He chose a place quite close to Angora, where he has a direct line of telegraph. He can be on the spot and decide the question once and for all. I am certain that peace would come from that conference. I have talked with many Turks, and I am certain of it.
After keeping the Quai d'Orsay waiting for fifteen days, when the rifles could go
off at any time and start the fighting again, our Foreign Office replied rejecting the Conference, and, at the same time, to put the lid on the whole thing, and I suppose to let the war continue, they demand this inquiry into the alleged Turkish atrocities. The French replied that they found the proposition of the Conference a very acceptable one. They were not bound to accept all KemaI's conditions because they attended it. They also agreed to have this inquiry on the Turkish atrocities if at the same time we would have an inquiry into the Greek atrocities at Smyrna, which the Prime Minister has put in a pigeon hole. I know what was in that inquiry. I have seen the whole of that inquiry and it summed up entirely against the Greeks. Do you think everyone does not know that? I cannot call it honest. I have been very busy and I find out now that the Atrocity Report is absolutely false. The facts have been sent to the American and the French Governments. Whether they have come to our Government, I do not know, but there it is. I hope our Government will not go on and make themselves ridiculous in the eyes of the Eastern world and Europe by accepting the thing without any proof. We do not all believe in Conferences. Some of us believe that a Conference is where bustle and confusion are mistaken for the activity of business. Our Prime Minister believes in them and I agree that his heart and soul were in what he tried to do. Why did he not go to Ismid? Why did he not take a light cruiser at Taranto travelling 22 knots and go through the Canal of Corinth to the Gulf of Ismid? He would have had it all over in three or four days. He could have talked with Kemal and made him moderate his demands. That is why I desired to go there. I know him well and respect him and I wanted to say to him, "For heaven's sake, Kemal, moderate your demands. We must have peace." And I would have worked heart and soul for it, but the Foreign Office were not of the same opinion. I have not altered my opinion and I only wish the Prime Minister could have been induced to go there. I believe fighting will begin before June is over. There is a large movement of Turks from the Eastward moving West. By our Government rejecting the plan of
Ismid—I defy anyone to contradict me—we have broken off negotiations for peace. I dare say there is still time. I do not wish to criticise. I have only said what I think is absolutely true. I only beg that the Government will try to alter their policy and follow Beaconsfield, Palmerston and the great man Salisbury, who were of one opinion and that was to have that military race, the Turks, as our friends on the road to India.

9.0 p.m.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I am sure the hon. and gallant Gentleman has performed a great public service in raising this question on one of the few last occasions on which the matter can be ventilated before the unhappy events that he feels justified in prophesying may come about, namely, the re-starting of fighting in the mountains and uplands of Anatolia. I propose to deal with one or two aspects of this very complicated and serious question. Why have the Government suddenly started to give exceptional publicity to the excesses, which I am afraid have occurred in some measure, committed by the Turks? Why have they been silent, and more than silent? Why have they suppressed the reports of their own officers on the excesses committed.by the Greeks? Why have they suddenly taken the step of putting up a private Member to ask an inspired question, and then read out this long, dramatic account of the horrors committed on the Black Sea coast by the Turks? What is the meaning of it? Is it in preparation for a General Election? Is the right hon. Gentleman going to try to stampede us with the story of Turkish atrocities as Gladstone did three generations ago with much more cause? The whole story that we have been allowing ourselves to believe is open to the greatest doubt, and if I might quote from a paper that is exceedingly friendly to the Greeks and to the Hellenic cause, and incidentally to the Prime Minister and all his works, and hostile, I am sorry to say, to the Turks, namely, the "Daily Telegraph" of yesterday, I think the House will agree that this is a very extraordinary state of affairs. We all remember the dramatic and tense silence with which the House heard this long statement of the awful barbarities committed against these Greeks. The authority quoted was Major Yowell, of the Ameri
can Near East Relief Association. The "Daily Telegraph" quotes as follows:
Mr. Larry Rue, special correspondent at Constantinople of the 'Chicago Tribune' telegraphed yesterday: 'Vigorous denial of allegations of atrocities perpetrated against Armenians in Asia Minor by the Turks made by Major Yowell, formerly with the American Near East Relief Association, was given to the Anatolia. Press to-day by Captain Jacquith, director at Constantinople of the Near East Relief. Captain Jacquith is now at Angora. "I authentically refute" said Captain Jacquith, "the declarations made by Major Yowell and his comrades. I regret the incident. The communications of these gentleman and similar challenges have done much to strain relations between the United States and Turkey. Major Yowell's complaint was not the result of an investigation by our authorities. He acted absolutely independently after his expulsion from Anatolia. Major Yowell and his comrades were deported for conduct hostile to the Turkish authorities. The information published in the 'New York Times' over his name was fabricated out of whole cloth."'
I do not understand that reference. Perhaps the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs does:
Captain Jacquith has accepted an invitation by the Turks to go to Kharput and investigate details of the alleged outrages committed against the Armenian and Creek populations there. It is learned on good authority that the Christian population at Caesarea have protested in a. mass meeting against the Yowell report.
I neither accepted the original statement in its entirety nor do I accept this denial in its entirety. These reports of excesses are always exaggerated, although to a certain extent they are only frequently too true. I accept the fact that probably there have been deplorable excesses committed by the Turks against their Greek subjects, and I accept the statement that there have been deplorable excesses perpetrated by the Greeks against the Turks in their occupied territory in this Smyrna vilayet. When you get Greeks fighting Turks you have all the atrocities and bestialities of a religious and racial war. In that part of the world these things are bound to happen, and there is only one cure, and that is peace. Peace would have come in these regions many months, indeed years, ago, but. for the deplorable foreign policy adopted by His Majesty's Government with regard to the whole Turkish question.
The Greek Army was very careful to keep out of the fighting while the War was on. It was when we had beaten Turkey, when we had disarmed Turkey
and had given the Turks certain definite understandings and undertakings by the Prime Minister in public speeches and by the terms of the Armistice, that we broke our word, as we have so often done with this unfortunate Government, and loosed the Greeks like jackals on the disabled lion—a horrible chapter of broken pledges and treachery towards the Turks, which will yet cost us dear amongst our millions of Moslem subjects. There are excesses on both sides, and so long as war continues there will be these excesses. There is only one cure, and that is peace, and that we shall at last acknowledge that we were wrong, that we backed the wrong horse. For heaven's sake! let us make the just and honourable peace that can be made with Turkey, and then these unfortunate minorities in Armenia, in lesser Armenia, and the Greek colonists on the shores of the Black Sea will, at last, be able to live peacefully as they did for 500 years. It was only when these unfortunate racial wars came that these attacks began and these unfortunate people were ill-used and massacred. Hon. Members will get up and with great eloquence will tell us that it is only occasionally that the Greeks, exasperated by the murder of their relatives, turn round and attack the Turks. May I quote another newspaper which carries great weight in all questions of foreign politics. I refer to the "Manchester Guardian." On 27th May, 1921, there was a long account by a special correspondent of this well-known and excellent paper, in which he described, at length, the appalling treatment of the Turkish villages in the Greek occupied area, especially in the Yalova district. He says:
Since Captain Dimitrius Pappagrigoriou, the Greek Commander-in-Chief, took command, all the Moslem villages except two— Samanli and Akkeui—have been destroyed by Creek so-called irregular bands. I found barely 500 survivors of these villages concentrated in Akkeui, Samanli, and the town of Yalova. Within the last 15 days 15 per cent. of the inhabitants of Akkeui have also been killed. The whole Moslem population is terrorised and in daily danger of death.
I raised the question of atrocities in this area at Question Time, and the Foreign Office admitted it, quite honestly, but the Government did not get a special question put, and the Leader of the House did not get up and give us a long screed, with all his great powers of oratory and
gesture. The matter was slurred over. This treatment of the Turks was not advertised, as in the case of the unfortunate Greek colonists along the Black Sea.
The reason why these colonists have been ill-used along the Black Sea coast—I do not say there have not been excesses —was that they rose in the rear of the Turkish Army, when the Greek forces were attacking them on the Smyrna front. Arms were landed by Greek warships, which we permitted to go to the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, and to communicate with the Greeks along that shore. A plot was formed for the Greek colonists to rise and to declare a Pontine Republic. The Turks were fighting for their lives, ill-equipped, short of men, short of arms, against the Greeks, who were supplied by us with everything they wanted. I dare say there were excesses, which I deplore, but it was bound to happen under the conditions. What would we have done in Flanders if the civil population had risen behind us? We should not have committed atrocities, but they would have had very harsh treatment. We must remember that the people to whom I am referring have not reached a very high state of civilisation.
The Prime Minister is always talking about the need of restoring peace, and of finding work for our unemployed, and of telling us that a million and a half men want employment and cannot get it because the trade of the world is bad. Nothing will revive trade more than the bringing of peace, but it is no good trying to make peace with Russia at Genoa and The Hague if you encourage and abet this war in Asia Minor. Asia Minor is a great market for British goods, but if we get ourselves known as the enemies of Islam, we shall alienate our loyal subjects in India, who have just as much right to be considered as His Majesty's subjects in this country. The Government have been wrong in this case. They have been wrong in other policies. They have been wrong in their agricultural policy, their Russian policy, and so forth, and they have, without acknowledging it, reversed their policy. Let them now be courageous enough to reverse their policy on this matter, and we on this side will not throw a taunt at them, but we will thank them for having, at last, honestly
acknowledged their mistake and started a new policy. I believe that an honest and honourable peace is possible.
The proposal to send a Committee of officers is not altogether a fair one, because there is a technical state of war with Turkey, and it is rather a tall order to expect the Turks to receive allied officers to investigate these alleged atrocities. I understand that the Turks are prepared to accept neutral officers, not from America, because America has, unfortunately, been identified with this Pontine movement. I believe they would accept Swedes, Swiss, Spaniards, or others not technically at war with them. That is very fair. Let us, at any rate, be impartial, and join France in sending a Committee of inquiry to Smyrna, and let the Greeks know that their Imperialistic ambitions must be curbed, and that they had better be careful to restrain their disappointed soldiery in their retreat, so that we may not have reprisals which might result in the extermination of these unfortunate Christians, for whom I feel as much as anybody else.

Mr. AUBREY HERBERT: I hope my two hon. and gallant Friends will forgive me if I do not follow them in all that they have said. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Wrekin Division (Sir C. Townshend) began by speaking of the differences between France and ourselves, and the fact that the Germans have made an alliance with Eussia. He might have extended the subject. He might have said that, unfortunately for us, our policy and the French policy are, on their worser sides, complementary of each other. While we are doing all we can by our policy to make all the enemies for us in Asia, not only the Turks, but also the Greeks, so also is the French policy keeping alive the enmity that exists in Europe. I go one step further than either of the two hon. and gallant Gentlemen. You are not going to cure this until we change our methods. No worse fate can befall a country than to be governed, as we are to-day, by a veiled autocracy, because when you have a Government of that kind it has to support its authority by unconstitutional means, that invites unconstitutional attack, as we have seen recently at Genoa. If we had had a constitutional Prime Minister, we should have been represented by trained diplomacy or the
League of Nations, and not by any of the bargaining that has been very detrimental to us. Again, if the result of those negotiations had ended in success, it would have been the success of a system and a machine working regularly and properly, that would have excited no enmity, and not the electoral success of an individual.
But on the one particular question I believe that the whole of the country was behind the Prime Minister when he went to Genoa. That is to say it desired the thing which he desired. I think that the ordinary man believed that the intentions of the Prime Minister were good in going to Genoa. I think that he also believed that his motives were mixed in going there, and probably thought that the methods employed were bad, but what I feel myself, and I expect that many other people feel the same thing, is that when the Prime Minister goes to a Conference it is as if I were in a storm at sea on a boat steered by a poet—he may be a very competent poet—who keeps his eyes on the stars, not to steer by them, but because he is going to write verses about them, but who on the other hand is a very indifferent pilot, because he has no eyes for the rocks. At Genoa the Prime Minister seems to have made peace among the neutrals. Then he made a truce among the people who are not fighting, and he is alleged to have made a breach in the entente, but one thing which he did not do was to bring peace to the two combatants who are fighting, that is the Greeks and Turks.
That oblivion on his part was very characteristic of him, because throughout his handling of affairs has been careless of our immediate interest in the East, and indifference to our future advantage, and it is not unfair to say that he has been callous in the sufferings of the victims of that unhappy war who were in no way responsible for it. His attitude towards the East has been characterised by a vicarious courage because, after all, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon he did it himself. He did not send the Greeks to do it as the present Prime Minister has done. The result has been misery from Smyrna to the Black Sea and the Pontus. Still no really active steps have been taken. Why is that? Is not the answer this, that any change in policy must be an admission of the
failure of what I will call the private policy of the Prime Minister? The only policy which he has followed in the East has been his private policy. This House has never really received full information about it.
I always think that the experience of the Prime Minister in home policy and domestic legislation has been very unfortunate and for this reason. It has taught him to believe that he can do what he has done in foreign policy, as in English policy. There is no man who has passed more colossal legislation only to scrap it. He passed land values and hurried them to a dishonoured grave. He gave the farmers and labourers their charter and turned it into tiny scraps of paper. He appears to think this can be done with foreign policy though it cannot be done. When you set two people at each other's throats, and, in consequence, blood has been shed, you cannot bring about peace simply by waving an olive branch. There is no road to peace to-day unless our Government are prepared to admit the mistakes which they have made in the past. That is not a very large sacrifice to make. It is a smaller one than the Greeks or Turks have made in this fighting.
In reference to the terms which have been offered to the Greeks and the Turks, I will only say that those terms do certainly constitute a step in advance though not a very big step. They constitute it for this reason, that they give the Greeks, who have been fighting for many years, a possible chance of ceasing hostilities, and they give the Turks a possibility, at any rate, of contemplating those terms. But I do not look on those terms as being in any way satisfactory or possible in the long run. For the simple reason that terms of this nature, though they may afford a cessation of hostilities are not going to bring peace. They are simply a pause in the battle for refreshment. It would be easy, and many hon. Members of this House know it, to find much more honourable, and much more generous terms, both to the Greeks and the Turks which would produce a permanent peace if the Government really set their mind to it. I think that very soon my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. O'Connor) will be speaking, and I would appeal to him to leave
all the barren recriminations with regard to these horrible things that have occurred on both sides and to ask him to use all his influence to persuade the Government to go in for a new policy, and to save the lives of the people. Let us, as far as we can, forget the past. I think he knows now that there is something in what I have said before, that is that when these horrors are committed on both sides it is chiefly, in fact almost wholly, on one side they are published, and I think that there is a great deal in what the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut-Commander Ken-worthy) said before he sat down.
I make one other appeal to this honourable House. Up to now, as I have said, the policy of the Government has been the private and not the public policy of the Prime Minister. This House of Commons has not been consulted on it. The Foreign Office has been very little consulted on this. We have reason to believe that distinguished and interested foreigners have been consulted, but not ourselves. I want to see a return to our old system. I want to see the Foreign Office restored and put in its place instead of miracles. We have been living under a reign of miracles that is really almost a reign of terror to a great many of us who are interested in foreign affairs. I hope that while this House is not sitting measures to bring an end to these hostilities will be taken. If that does not happen, I hope when this House meets again that a vote of want of confidence in the Government will be proposed, for which I, for one, shall be very happy to vote.

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) was courageous enough in the course of his Turkophil speech to quote the name of Gladstone. I wonder what Mr. Gladstone if he were in this House this evening, would think of a Liberal Member minimising the massacres by the Turks and maximizing the alleged massacres by the Greeks and proclaiming a policy more Turkophil almost than the Turks themselves. If my hon. and gallant Friend had lived in those great days of Liberalism, I tell him frankly there would have been no place for him in a Liberal constituency in the United Kingdom if he had
preached the policy he has proclaimed to-day. The hon. and gallant Gentleman also said that if the Government reversed their policy, that is, took up the side of the Turks as strongly as it is against the Turks, then, "We would support the Government." "We"? For whom does he speak? Does he mean to suggest that the majority of Liberals in this nation have abandoned the policy of Gladstone and all the other leaders who have protested against the massacres by the Turks? My view is that to-day there is just as strong an opinion deep down in the hearts of the people, and especially among the churches of this country, who are as strongly determined to put an end to these massacres of Christians as there was even in the days of Gladstone. The hon. and gallant Gentleman, in his interesting speech, quoted Lord Beaconsfield and the late Lord Salisbury. He omitted to mention that Lord Salisbury had to admit that in supporting the Turks at the time of the Berlin Treaty, England had backed the wrong horse.

Lord R. CECIL: It was after the Crimean War.

Mr. O'CONNOR: That war is now accounted by most people to have been one of the greatest blunders and crimes in our history. I am glad to say that not only John Bright bat Cardinal Newman were amongst those who opposed that outrageous, futile and wicked war. What is the case for my hon. and gallant Friend? He mentioned a "put up" question by a private Member. He said a private Member had asked the Leader of the House a question, to which he gave a reply. As that private Member was myself, I would say that I was not "put up" to do it. I am not to be accounted among the regular or irregular supporters of the Government. I put the question because I read the statement in the papers of the day. I had no more idea than my hon. and gallant Friend of the answer the Leader of the House was going to give me. I had no communication with the right hon. Gentleman, except that I sent him a private notice, as I was bound by courtesy and the rules of the House to do. Why does the hon. and gallant Gentleman resort to what I must call these petty expedients in order to throw discredit on the statements with regard to the atrocities by the Turks?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: My hon. Friend will perhaps allow me to make an explanation. I was completely wrong about that; I was thinking about another question. I should like to withdraw what I said about any "put up" question. I know the hon. Gentleman is perfectly incapable of anything of that sort.

Mr. O'CONNOR: As a matter of fact, I do not see any reason why, if I were so disposed, I should not have gone to the Leader of the House and said, "I have this question, and I want to put a question about it." Anything that is done to bring out these abominable atrocities of the Turks on the Christians of the East is met by my hon. and gallant Friend with every weapon of raillery and suggestion and doubt and animosity.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: They are exaggerated.

Mr. O'CONNOR: Is it an exaggeration that a million Armenians were killed during the War? Is it, or is it not? If the hon. and gallant Gentleman says it is an exaggeration, I call the testimony of Lord Bryce and the other authorities who examined most carefully into these things and who, having tested the evidence, brought forth that most damning document of the most hideous massacres in history. Why was it done against the Armenians. It was done against us, as well as against the Armenians, because the Turks knew that if our side won in the War, one of the first things we expected to do, and ought to have done, was to give the Armenians protection against the Turks. I am astounded at the refracting perversity of partisanship in the ordinary clear and humane mind of my hon. and gallant Friend. He. has just succeeded in getting the promise of further protection in regard to performing animals. I fully sympathise with him, and congratulate him on his success, but am I not entitled to ask from him for human beings, though they happen to be Christians and not Mahommedans, such protection against butchery as he is entitled to ask for protection against the ill-treatment of monkeys, birds, and performing parrots?
I cannot understand the kind of mind, especially in a Liberal, which my hon. and gallant Friend applies to this problem. What is his criticism of the
statement of the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State? The House was thrilled and shocked by that awful story of horrors which the hon. Gentleman put before it, and the only comment the hon. and gallant Gentleman has to make on that terrible revelation of hideous crime is that it was done with dramatic effect, as if it required dramatic effect to emphasise to any body of humane and generous Englishmen the horror of the crimes of which the hon. Gentleman spoke. The hon. and gallant Gentleman says that the evidence was simply that of an American. That is not so. All the American did was to confirm the reports which our own officials had got of these hideous massacres. It is not honest, not liberal, and not wise for a man to try and minimise these atrocities instead of dragging them into the light, and for the purpose of defeating a policy which is meant to make a recurrence of these horrors impossible.
My hon. and gallant Friend the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. A. Herbert) and the hon. and gallant Member for Wrekin (Major-General Sir C. Townshend), who opened this discussion, retort by saying: "Oh, but there were Greek atrocities." Who denies it? When I ventured the other day, in an interview which I had the honour of having with M. Venizelos, to speak of these allegations, he laid down what I think is an unanswerable reply, "You must compare the comparable." What he meant by that, he explained, was that you must compare the action of a settled Greek Government in normal times with the action of a settled Turkish Government in ordinary times. You must not compare the deeds that are done in the savage hours of war with the deeds that are done with the sanction and by the initiative of the Government, and a-s the Government policy such as the massacre of the Armenians during the War, on which the Turks were congratulated indirectly by the friends of my hon. and gallant Friends, namely, by Bethmann-Hollweg and other German authorities.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Our friends?

Mr. O'CONNOR: Your new friends on this Turkish policy. The Turks were congratulated on the improvements they had brought about in the condition of Turkey and in the rehabilitation of
Turkey—the improvements being the massacre of one million Armenians. Does my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Hull know any Armenians and any Greeks? Will he say that any English woman in her home is a higher or nobler specimen of womanhood than the typical Greek or Armenian? Yet when these people are ravished and murdered, when their babies are butchered before their mothers' eyes, my hon. and gallant Friend has less sympathy with them than with the performing monkey or the caged canary. That is the new humanitarianism of the new school of Radicalism represented by my hon. and gallant Friend. What about the Greek atrocities? The main scene of them is Smyrna. The Greek troops came there. They were fired upon by the Turks. I brought down to this House M. Venezelos, and I think my hon. and gallant Friends will say that he made one of the frankest statements that was ever made by the Prime Minister of a country.

Mr. A. HERBERT: I should have liked to have had an official report.

Mr. O'CONNOR: I have not got it and so cannot speak of it. What happened at Smyrna was that when the Greek troops arrived it was with the knowledge that tens of thousands of their countrymen and fellow Christians, the Armenians, had been massacred during the War. I do not suppose they were in a particularly gentle frame of mind. They were fired on. They made reprisals, some of them bloody and horrible reprisals. Does anyone suppose that an army in the field, fired upon by the enemy in all the savage passions of war, can be expected to have the same control of temper or of their swords and guns as men in ordinary tunes? I do not believe there has been one murder by a Greek of a Turk for every 10,000 murders by Turks of Greeks and Armenians during the last four or five years. I cannot accept the doctrine that the life of one Turk is as valuable as the lives of 10,000 Christians, because the one happens to be a follower of Mahomet and the other a follower of Christ. There were atrocities committed. What happened? The Greek Government immediately held an inquiry and brought before courts-martial the soldiers who could be identified as having taken part in the massacre. I forget the number of
condemnations, but they ran into hundreds, and two Greeks, I believe the day after the atrocities, were hanged in the streets of Smyrna. Give me any such instance of prompt justice by the Turks.
Anybody who wants to look at this question impartially must make an essential distinction between acts done by soldiers in the passion of war and acts committed at ordinary times. Does my hon. and gallant Friend know that there is a large number of Mahommedan deputies in the Greek Chamber? I believe there are 18 from Thrace and 11 or 12 from Macedonia, though at the moment I cannot be sure as to the exact number. That does not look like a desire to oppress the Turks under Greek rule. The other day there was a division on which the fate of the Greek Ministry depended. The Ministry was saved or lost—I forget at the moment which—by one vote. In the Division Lobby there were 30 or 40 Mahommedan deputies. Did any Greek get up and say, "We cannot. regard this as a fair vote, on which the Government may be turned out of office, because the majority was only one and there were 30 or 40 Mahommedans in the majority"? The Mahommedans play the same part in Greece as the party to which I belong played in past years in this House. I was one of the seven Irishmen who turned out the Government in 1885. No one said that that Division could not be accepted because there were seven Irish Members in the majority. The Mahommedan deputy in Greece has the same value as a voter, and the same attention as a speaker as any Greek deputy in the Chamber. I judge of what will happen to the Turks under normal conditions of Greek rule by the great traditions of culture and civilisation which Greece inherits, and without which most of us would be uncultured here to-day, and on the uniform practice of the Greek Government to treat the Mahommedan subjects with exactly the same equality, religious, racial and political, as any other race or creed. We are told that the British Government must change its policy. Does my hon. and gallant Friend want the Government to force the Greek Army out of Asia Minor?

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Certainly.

Mr. O'CONNOR: Let us analyse that proposition. The Greeks are to leave
Asia Minor, which means that they must also leave Smyrna, where there is a Christian majority, and must leave every Greek and Armenian Christian in Asia Minor exposed to the risk of such massacres as have horrified the world within the last two or three weeks. I take the opposite policy, and I say that if this country or any other country makes the Greeks withdraw their troops until they have protection in an autonomous Smyrna district and a place of refuge for all possible victims of Turkey—Turkey, which, although not triumphant, is so cruel—if any Christian Government does that, its pretence to Christianity and the love of liberty is a. blasphemy and a hypocrisy. My hon. and gallant Friend will see the gulf that is between us. I hold him, and every other man who wants to drive the Greeks from Asia Minor, and from the Smyrna region, responsible, as I hold Lord Beaconsfield responsible, for tens of thousands of human lives which have been destroyed through the adoption of that policy. It is said that the Kemalists must not give an armistice. One of my hon. Friends asked me if I professed to speak in the cause of peace. I do; I want peace, and why should there not be an armistice? I do not believe the Kemalists want to advance on the Greeks, and I am sure the Greeks do not want to advance on the Kemalists. If these two people fight, it is because stupidity will drive them into the battlefield in spite of themselves. When the Government declares its policy to be the policy of the whole Christian and humane world, that they will not allow Turkish authority any more to misrule and butcher Christians, and when they stand behind the Greeks in that policy, then and then only shall we have peace with honour and a real protection for these people in the future.

Lord R. CECIL: The hon. Member who has just addressed the House has a great right to speak with the warmth and eloquence which he possesses, against the atrocities of the Turks on the Christians in Asia Minor and elsewhere, because he has often done so before and with great effect. I cannot conceive how anyone could possibly palliate the conduct of the Turks during the last few years, and during a much longer period. I do not think those who desire a peaceful policy
to be pursued by this country, do their cause any good by minimising the atrocious crime or set of crimes committed by Talaat and all his myrmidons during 1915 and 1916. Unfortunately, similar crimes have been committed both before that time and since, by direct orders from the old Constantinople Government, and not by the casual fury of local people. It has been proved over and over again that the local authorities are not, generally speaking, responsible for these brutalities, but they have been committed almost always by the orders of the central government.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I do not palliate that.

Lord R. CECIL: I know that. I am sure nothing is gained by palliating that, nor do I think anything is gained, if my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. O'Connor) will forgive me for saying so, by palliating some of the things which have been recently done by the Greeks. I am afraid I am not able to accept the defence he put forward for some of the things done in Smyrna and neighbourhood unless the accounts I have read are wholly untrue. It is not only a question of the occupation of Smyrna, but quite recently serious allegations have been made as to crimes committed by Greeks in that part, and I cannot forget the report of Professor Toynbee as to what was done at Yalova—and he was. not a Turcophile, but was constrained by what he saw to report very seriously indeed on the crimes being committed by the Greek forces that were there. We must admit that atrocities have been committed on both sides. In my judgment, far the greater number have been committed by the Turks, but still, they have been committed on both sides, and it is one of the terrible effects of these atrocities that once they are started they lead. to other atrocities. There are reprisals, and reprisals are always indefensible, even in Ireland, but are terrible when they are carried out by half-civilised people under these conditions.
Therefore I look with the greatest possible apprehension to what is likely to happen in the near future in Asia Minor. The present situation is a very dangerous one. It is the result of the terrible mistakes made by the British Government and its Allies in their Middle Eastern
and Near Eastern policy. There was a delay after the Armistice, before they made peace with Turkey, when months passed during which the Turks would have gladly accepted almost any terms. Certainly if something like moderate and reasonable terms had been offered there is not the least doubt the Turks would have accepted. The excuse that the Allies were waiting to find out whether the Americans would accept a mandate, always appeared to me to be miserably inefficient. I am afraid there are other directions in which we shall have to pay for the mistakes then committed. I should be glad if my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs can tell us why we ever encouraged or sent the Greeks to Smyrna, and having sent them there, or encouraged them to go there, what are our obligations? What is our policy in regard to their remaining in Smyrna. I have heard on what appears to be very good authority, that in the territories now occupied by the Greeks, there are no less than 800,000 non-Turkish inhabitants, and that if the Greeks withdraw without anything being clone, these people, most of whom probably have compromised themselves from the Turkish point of view during the occupation, will be left at the mercy of a Turkish army not perhaps very well disciplined, and deranged by national, racial, and religious feeling. We have first to consider the risk to this very large population. Then there is another point which I hesitate to put. I think, however, it is right to put it, because I do not think there can be any doubt about it. What security is there that we can hold Constantinople against the Kemalists forces if the Greeks are completely withdrawn in Asia? If it is not indiscreet to ask I should like to know whether my hon. Friend agrees or disagrees with the estimate of the numbers of people who will be endangered by an immediate withdrawal of the Greeks. Besides that, we have to consider very important and difficult political considerations in regard to the Mahommedan people.
I ask the Government what is their policy? What are they going to do? The hon. Member who spoke last makes an open appeal that we should protect the Greek population or, as I prefer to put it, the non-Turkish population. I agree
that as a most desirable thing to do if we can do it, but are we going to war? Are we going to send an expedition to do it? I do not think that is practical politics. He said we might leave the Greeks there. Are we going to ask the Greeks to remain, or merely going to leave the situation alone? Which is to be our policy? If we merely leave it alone, is it certain that the Greeks will economically and financially, apart from militarily, be able to maintain themselves? If they say, "If you want us to stay, are you prepared to pay for us to stay?" what is going to be our reply to that? These questions seem to me to be very important, and the House should have some enlightenment upon them. We ought to know where we stand and where we are going. If my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs says he can make no answer because negotiations are proceeding and he has some hope that they are going to result in a peace, well and good, but if not, let us know where we stand and what we are going to do.
In particular, I want to ask what are our obligations, if any, with regard to Smyrna. Are we under any obligation? Did we ask the Greeks to go there If so, on what terms, for what purpose, when, and by whose advice? I think the time has come when we might. know that without any disadvantage. It must have happened two or three years ago. Owing to the conditions under which the House now has to consider foreign affairs, as far as I know no Papers have ever been presented to Parliament giving us any account of that very fatal transaction, because there are many who know these countries well who tell me that it was the going of the Greeks to Smyrna which really destroyed our influence with the Turks. I do not know whether that is true, but I should like to know: and since they have been there, is it. or is it. not true, as is constantly alleged, that we have given them, secretly or openly, some encouragement to remain? If we have not, as I understand we have not, found any money or advanced any money or given any credit, I understand we did do something to facilitate their getting credits in London. I should like to know if that. is so. The Government, as I understood the Financial Secretary the other day, did say that they had facilitated the raising of credits in London, and I want to know whether we did do that, and, if
so, what is the obligation which rests upon us in consequence. I think the House is entitled to some enlightenment on these questions. They are very serious, and they are likely to produce, or may produce, very far-reaching results.
10.0 P.M.
We do nothing but harm if we merely denounce the Turks for massacring Christians unless we are prepared to do something to save the Christians. With that, I think, my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool will fully agree. Mere denunciation is quite valueless, and we must be prepared with a policy. Well, what is the policy? It is extremely difficult to make suggestions unless you are in full possession of a number of facts of which no unofficial Member can be in possession, but I think, myself, that if it is our policy to make peace with the Angora Turks—and I imagine, by what has passed, that that is our policy—we ought to be quick about it. There is no time to he lost. The matter is very urgent, and in particular we ought to do it before—emphatically before—any evacuation by the Greeks takes place. Those seem to me to be the broad facts of the situation, but I implore the Government, even if they cannot announce it to the House—there may be difficulties in doing that—at any rate to have in their own minds a clear and definite plan which they will pursue. It really is fatal—I agree most fully with my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. A. Herbert)—to think that in foreign policy you can pursue one policy for a little while and then, when it becomes unpopular or for some other reason, change round and pursue another policy. The only result of that is that you obtain the results of neither policy. and you incur profound distrust from all the nations with which you are dealing. That fatal tendency of the Government in foreign affairs seems to me to have produced much that we all deplore in recent international history, and I ask my hon. Friend, if he can, to relieve an anxiety, which I assure him is felt far beyond the walls of this House, as to the position which now exists in Asia Minor and the policy of the British Government with regard to it.

Mr. C. HARMSWORTH: There were many things in the speech of my Noble Friend the Member for Hitchin (Lord R.
Cecil) with which I found myself. if I may respectfully say so, as, indeed, I always do find myself, in a large measure of agreement, and particularly I agreed with him when, referring to the duel that has taken place between different hon. Members in the House about Greek and Turkish atrocities, he said that we should do best not to palliate either. It is my belief that dreadful crimes have been committed on both sides, and in both cases in circumstances which do not always admit of the excuse that they were committed in hot blood, but I do not see, myself, what is the advantage of discussing those deplorable events in this House. So much can be said on one side, and so much can be said on the other. It is claimed, on the one hand, that the charge against one of the parties is out of all comparison more serious than that against another—I think so myself—but I do not see the advantage of our discussing it in this House, and particularly at this period.

Mr. O'CONNOR: I referred to them, not for the purpose of recrimination, but to suggest to the Government a policy which would prevent the recurrence of such massacres.

Mr. HARMSWORTH: In that connection, as illustrations, no doubt some references to these events are advisable, but I strongly deprecate anything in the nature of a first-class or full-dress Debate on the deplorable events that have occurred on both sides in that part of the world. With reference to the remark which fell from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Hull (Lieut. - Commander Kenworthy), I thought he was less than fair, if he will permit me to say so, in suggesting that this Government are in the habit of shirring over the Greek excesses. I can assure him that there is no intention on my part to do anything of the kind, and if I do not often speak in this House on these excesses, or on the Turkish excesses, it is because, for my part, I have never been able to see that any good was to come of our discussing in this House these abominable occurrences which have for so long disgraced warfare in Asia Minor.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I was referring to answers to questions. I do not accuse the hon. Gentleman in his speeches of anything unfair.

Mr. H AR MSWORTH: My Noble Friend asked me a number of questions, to some of which, I am quite sure, he will not expect very explicit answers. He spoke of the non-Turkish people within the area now occupied by the Greeks. It is a very large number, but whether he is accurate in estimating the number at 800,000 I do not know; but certainly, whatever the number, it is large, and this House cannot disinterest itself in the safety and welfare of those people. Then my Noble Friend asked me, could we, or can we, hold Constantinople? That is a matter I should have thought rather for naval and military authorities, and I should imagine that they would be very-slow to express their opinion on the subject, even if they were present in the House to address the House on that subject. I can assure my Noble Friend of one thing. and that is that we have not assisted the Greek Government in recent times to obtain credit. I think he was quite mistaken in thinking that the Government, openly or indirectly, have assisted the Greeks to obtain credit in recent times.
May I remind the House of what, in point of fact, the position is with regard to negotiations? Members have long enough accused His Majesty's Government of an extraordinary remissness in dealing with this matter of Turkey. If His Majesty's Government have been remiss, they have shared their remissness with very good company. It was not the particular and sole business of His Majesty's Government to bring about a settlement in Turkey, or in any one of the late enemy Empires. I think that point ought always to be borne in mind when we are discussing these matters, and I venture to say—I hope it is not an indiscreet. thing to say—that, in my judgment, sometimes, if His Majesty's Government—either this Government or some other British Government—had sole charge of the settlement, whether in the Turkish Empire or another, results might have been more speedily achieved, and might have proved more satisfactory to the world. But, at all events, in recent months the Government cannot be accused of slackness or remissness in the matter of the settlement of affairs of the late Turkish Empire.
I need only remind the House of the recent Conference at Paris, to which my Noble Friend the Secretary of State went
when he, as I thought, and think, was in a condition of health that scarcely justified him in undergoing so much fatigue, and the whole matter was discussed with our French and Italian Allies. And what did they propose? I am not going to remind the House of all the terms, but of one of the terms which is of particular interest to us this evening. What was the first of the conditions proposed by the Conference in Paris? It was that there should be- an armistice, pending discussions on other points. It is no fault of His Majesty's Government. or of the Allies of this country, that that proposal for an armistice has not yet been accepted. It. has been accepted by Greece. It has not been accepted by the Angora Government. Whose fault is that? If there has been delay in the negotiations. how can it be charged against His Majesty's Government, or against the Allies? Indeed, it is historical that when you are engaged in diplomatic business with Eastern peoples. you must expect delay, for you will certainly get it. If the House will indulge me so far, I can make considerable use of a note which I have here, which has been very carefully considered, and which I have made, as it were, my own by going over every word with the greatest care.
On 22nd March the Conference of Allied Foreign Ministers at Paris proposed an immediate armistice to the Governments of Athens, Constantinople and Angora.
Hon. Members will not overlook the fact that, in dealing with the Turkish situation, you have to deal with two Turkish Governments.
The Greek Government. accepted. No reply was received from Turkey. On 27th March the Conference communicated to Athens, Constantinople and Angora its proposals for a general settlement, which included evacution under Allied supervision. At the same time it invited those three Governments to send delegates to meet the three Allied High Commissioners at a place-to be agreed on, in order to examine the proposals, it being understood. of course, that the armistice at that time was in force. On 5th April the Angora Government replied, accepting the armistice, but it qualified its acceptance by the condition that. the evacuation of Asia Minor should begin at once.
The House will see—I must deal with this matter with particular discretion—that when you propose an armistice on one side, and the other side proposes immediate evacuation, it is a contradiction in terms.
Subject to this condition that is, that the evacuation should begin at once, so exposing an unarmed population), the Angora Government was also prepared to send delegates in three weeks to examine the general proposals. On 8th April the Constantinople Government expressed itself as willing to send delegates in three weeks for peace negotiations. It appeared not to be concerned with the armistice, but urged early evacuation of Asia Minor. Constantinople and Angora neither accepted nor rejected the general proposals.
My Noble Friend says, "Get on with it; you ought to lose no time at all in coming to terms." I agree with him most heartily, but rapidity of movement on our part—and the House will observe that there has been no loss of time in these negotiations—without some responsive rapidity on their part cannot lead to what is desired.
The Greek Government, having accepted the armistice, considered that it need return no answer about the general proposals until Turkey had definitely accepted the armistice. On 15th April, the Allies replied to Angora: (1) that. the Allies could not agree to the immediate evacuation of Asia Minor, (2) that they might, however, agree to evacuation beginning as soon as "the body" of the general proposals had been accepted, any "special points" being reserved for discussion. On 19th April the Allies replied to the Constantinople Government in much the same sense.
The House will see what are the difficulties of the situation. Now we come to the subject which has formed so great a part of our discussion this evening.
Angora replied on 22nd April, referring at length to alleged Greek atrocities and insisting on immediate evacuation. It suggested a conference at Ismid, "to open preliminary negotiations" and indicated that some of the peace proposals were unacceptable. The Constantinople Government replied on 29th April ostensibly accept-
ing all the principles of the proposed settlement, but virtually challenging the whole settlement proposed.

Lord R. CECIL: Was there any reply to the proposal for a conference at Ismid?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I prefer not to go into that, at the moment. On consideration I think that when hon. Members are disposed to visit their wrath, as is perhaps natural, on their own Government and then on the Allied Governments for the procrastination, delay, remissions, and carelessness that has taken place they ought to have in mind first of all the immense difficulties of conducting what I may call peace negotiations when some of the principal parties have some divergence of aims and interests, and, again, when they are dealing with a people who, whatever their virtues, are not prone to the rapid dispatch of business, political or of any other kind. Since the dates I have mentioned in the course of this brief narrative we have had these later relations regarding Turkish excesses. When I say later I refer to the information that came through American informants and which did but confirm, as my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. O'Connor) has said such information as we had officially touching upon the same matter. I will not say any more on that, but the Government have been no less profoundly moved by these reports than the general body of the House. At all events the facts that these statements are, according to my information, well founded the more justifies, in my judgment, the allied policy of insisting upon an armistice, and not agreeing to an immediate evacuation: of insisting upon all those measures for the protection of minorities by inter-allied commissions and so forth, and the arrangements for securities in the matter which are now under the discussion of the Governments and which I myself hope will be concluded before long.

PENSIONS.

Mr. AMMON: I propose to speak concerning the condition of a number of our men who are suffering as a result of the War. If in this matter I have not followed the usual procedure by giving the Minister of Pensions notice, it was because of my lack of knowledge as to the procedure of the House rather than any intentional discourtesy. I am sure
the Minister will do the best he can with regard to the cases to which I desire to call attention. The first is that of George Midmore, late private in the Northampton Regiment, and it is only because I believe that very grave injustice is being done to this man that I bring his case forward. This man was wounded by a gunshot in the chest and I am told that it was an expanding bullet. He was admitted to the hospital in March, 1919, and was awarded a pension of 80s. He was shifted from hospital to hospital and finallyencephalitis lethargica, or what is better known as sleeping sickness, supervened, and the man is suffering from that complaint at the present moment. Hon. Members will appreciate the sadness of this case when I say that the man is dead except that the. medical men say that his brain is still active and alive. He is paralysed in all his limbs, he has completely lost the power of speech, but he is, nevertheless, conscious of all that is happening around him. In spite of all this, his pension has been knocked off.
He was discharged from St. David's Home on the 14th of January, and he was afterwards transferred to Rotherhithe Hospital, where he is now. The local pension authorities have done everything they possibly can, both to get the Pensions Ministry and other authorities to give reconsideration to this case, with a view to getting his pension reinstated. The position now is, that there is a temporary weekly allowance of 10s. 6d. for himself, his wife, and three children. One can imagine the feelings of this man, who is suffering from actual wounds inflicted during the War, at the thought that while he is lying there the Minister of Pensions has taken from his dependants that allowance for maintenance which he had a right to expect, thus adding to his already great physical suffering a considerable amount of additional mental suffering.
The local pensions authority complain that they believed that this case has been wholly misjudged right through, and that the alteration in the pension took place without them being informed that any such alteration was contemplated. It was only by accident, after it had been in operation some time, that they discovered the position to be as it is. I know it will be said that this is an
independent tribunal and that the Pensions Ministry have no authority over it, or that there is no reason to suspect that they have given other than an impartial verdict. It was resented this afternoon when I suggested that the Ministry was hiding behind these tribunals and trying to escape their liabilities towards these people. I am bound to say I must repeat that assertion in the light of the evidence I have had presented to me. Surely, whatever the element of doubt may be, if anyone is entitled to the benefit of the doubt it is the man himself who has suffered so terribly under these circumstances. There might be some medical doubt, but we can only take the position as it is at the moment. Here is this man admittedly suffering from a terrible wound in the chest. From the moment he was admitted to hospital so suffering he has been shifted from hospital to hospital and has been dying by inches. He lies in this condition a mere breathing log, so far as control over his limbs is concerned, but conscious of what is going on. Yet now he has added to his sufferings the knowledge that. his wife and children are being deprived of the meagre pension given to him. I very respectfully submit to the Minister of Pensions it is not good enough to say that this is the decision of an independent tribunal who have given their verdict in this case. There ought to be other means, when such cases as this crop up, whereby the man can get the benefit of the doubt and secure some recognition for those dependent on him because they have lost their breadwinner. I do not want to enlarge on the horrors of this case. I think the plain statement of facts I have given should be sufficient to arouse the sympathies of hon. Members and induce them to insist that something should be done to bring relief to this man.
The other case to which I wish to refer is of a somewhat similar nature. It is the case of a man named Alsopp, attached to the Royal Engineers, and resident at Market Harboro. He was sent to Mesopotamia and invalided home suffering from some disease due to the climate. From the moment of getting home he has steadily grown worse and the medical certificate, a copy of which I forwarded to the Ministry, certifies him as suffering from disseminated sclerosis. His condition is somewhat similar to that of the
man to whose case I have already drawn attention. Since his case has been brought to the attention of the Ministry the man has died as a result of sufferings which were occasioned by the War. His wife and children—there are two or three—are left without any pension whatever or any grant, and nothing 7s being done to help them in the distressing circumstances that have arisen. When I brought. the case to the notice of the Ministry of Pensions all the reply I got was an expression of regret that no further action could be taken with regard to the claim for pension, and that the decision of the Pension Appeal Tribunal, which is a separate statutory body, was final and binding upon both parties. That may be all very well as far as the law goes, but I suggest to the Minister of Pensions that this House has no right to appeal to the letter of the law in a case like this. These men offered all they had to offer to their country, whatever difference of opinion there may be as to the War, there can be no question that these men could do no more than they did. We ought therefore to have some regard to the pledges that were given that they would rot be allowed to suffer because of their sacrifices in the War. This man went forward a fit and sound man, and came back and died by inches, as the other man is dying. He left a widow and children who were utterly dependent upon him, and are now without any resources. I do submit that a case like this cannot be dismissed by simply pointing us, as is done again and again, to the fact that this particular tribunal is a statutory body from which there is no appeal. Surely the number of cases which are brought to the attention of the House, by Members of all parties and shades of opinion, should be enough to arouse a suspicion that everything cannot be quite right. There might be many cases in which the diagnosis is correct that the illness is not wholly due to war service, but every case challenged cannot be wrong, and even if a case is not wholly attributable, and there is some element of doubt, I repeat that we have no right to take advantage of the doubt, but that the benefit of it ought to be given to the man's case every time, particularly where wholly-dependent widows and children are left.
There are two other cases of a more minor character which I have notified the
hon. and gallant Gentleman that I would bring before him. They are the case of two widows, for whom I ask for his sympathy. Their husbands were killed. One was the mother of a, legitimate child, but latterly she appears to have got into trouble in her relations with some other person. The Bermondsey local pensions authority made inquiries into the case, and were satisfied that in a large measure she was more sinned against than sinning. The case has been watched closely, and all the reports are that she has lived a decent and moral life, and has been struggling very hard to keep straight and bring up her boy in a proper and decent way. The person who got her into trouble was of considerably better social status than herself, and that may be an indication of what might have happened. Her pension has been taken away, though there is a small allowance for the boy. The people who have had charge of the case feel that it is indeed one for reconsideration, and that the Ministry of Pensions ought to encourage this woman to lead a straight life and to help her bring up her children in a proper manner, rather than help to drive her on the downward path. No one here is attempting to defend her moral lapse, but I venture to say, with a good deal of knowledge of pension cases and of work in connection with pensions, that there are many cases which have not. been brought to the attention of the Ministry, and where no notice is taken, and the woman is receiving her pension as some recompense for the loss of her husband. After all, it is not our duty altogether to set ourselves up as moral censors where these people are trying to lead a straight life, for many of us, perhaps, would not come out unscathed if any such inquiry were made into the whole of our past, although not for this particular form of wrongdoing.
The other ease concerns a woman who Is in rather a different category. She got into similar trouble, but her home influence has been bad during all her days. She has lived in a bad environment, and she has been blackmailed to a considerable extent by her relatives, making it even harder for her. The local pensions committee say, however, that, having kept her under close observation, they have never seen a more marvellous change than in her struggle to live a decent, sober and respectable
life; and yet the Ministry have turned her case down. I submit that both these women have the responsibility of their legitimate children, who are the children of men who lost their lives in the Great War, and that it is the duty of the Ministry of Pensions, other things being equal, and there being some endeavour to keep right, to make it easy—not too easy, but, at any rate, possible—for them to lead a decent life and bring up their children in the manner in which they should be brought up, so that, at any rate, they should not be driven down bad paths because of the necessity forced upon them by the circumstances of their mothers.
I ask the Minister of Pensions to give some consideration to the cases of these men, who are suffering from their wounds and have never been well from the moment they were brought off the battlefield. Surely there is a case for them, and I also feel there is a case for sympathetic treatment of those women who have made, and are making, a struggle to amend for their wrongdoing in the past, and for the responsibility of the children of the soldiers whose lives have been laid down.

Mr. N. MACLEAN: I gave the right hon. Gentleman notice at Question Time that I would raise this question on the Adjournment because of the unsatisfactory nature of his reply. I have had this case before the Ministry for some considerable time. The replies to the letters I have sent and the questions I have addressed are of a stereotyped character. The case relates to a man who was married while on the strength. That is the dispute between the Ministry and the woman who, I contend, ought to receive the pension. This man was married and went back to duty and was discharged six months after he had been married. The Ministry make the statement that he was not married while he was on duty, and consequently they cannot recognise the woman as his widow. The curious fact. arises that after he was married his wife received the wife's separation allowance, and when ultimately he was demobilised, owing to certain disabilities he contracted while on service, he received a 50 per cent. pension, his wife received the wife's allowance, and there was a child's allowance for the child. The man
died, and now the Ministry say, "You are not entitled to a widow's pension, although you were entitled to a wife's separation allowance, because we contend that when this man married you he was not serving in the Army." In Scotland we have a saying that "Facts are chic's that winna ding." The Minister of Pensions will realise the appropriateness of this quotation to the case I am reciting. This is the marriage certificate:
William Ross Munro, coachman, to Margaret Garvie.
They were married on.2nd July, 1915. After his marriage he went hack to duty and served at Dunbarton. This is his discharge. certificate. He was discharged after serving one year and 167 days with the Colours. He had enlisted on 7th August, 1914, and was discharged on 6th January, 1916. The marriage certificate is dated the 2nd July, 1915. Will the Minister of Pensions maintain before this House that this man was married after he had been discharged, when the two official documents are before the House? Here is a statement sent out by the Ministry. It is a letter sent to Mrs. Munro on 19th September, 1921:
DEAR MADAM,
I am in receipt of answer from the Ministry of Pensions re your appeal. I am directed to inform you that owing to your husband having been removed from duty prior to the date of marriage, you have not the right of appeal to the Pensions Appeal Tribunal, and no further action can be taken.
That was sent out by the City of Glasgow Local Committee under the War Pensions Act, and was issued from the Govan Town Hall. According to this statement, she is refused her pension owing to her husband having been removed from duty prior to the date of marriage. Here is the marriage certificate, and the man s discharge certificate from the Army falsifying this statement from the Ministry of Pensions. In taking up this case I have put before the Ministry the whole facts again and again. I received in April a letter which is indicative of the replies I have received:
With reference to your letter of the 6th inst. referring to the case of Mrs. Munro, of Govan, widow of Private William Rose Munro, I am sorry that no award of pension can be made to her under the terms of the Royal Warrant, as the late soldier was removed from duty prior to the date of his marriage"—
Here is the same statement, although the Minister shook his head when I said that was the reason given by the Ministry for refusing the pension—
on account of the disease which subsequently caused his death. Mrs. Munro cannot be considered a widow according to the definition contained in Article 242 of the Royal Warrant, and the fact that the mail served after marriage, and that Mrs. Munro received separation and pensions allowances as his wife does not affect the decision that she is ineligible for pension.
That is from your own Ministry. Did anyone ever hear such a rigmarole and nonsense? First of all, you say that he was removed from duty prior to the date of the marriage; then you say the fact that she had received wife's allowance, separation allowance, and pension allowance does not alter the fact that she is ineligible for pension. If it does not alter the fact, there has been gross carelessness on the part of the Ministry. If she was not entitled to pension allowance she ought not to have received it. She ought not to have received separation allowance. She received both, and no attempt is made by the Minister, no statement is issued on behalf of the Minister, to say that it is intended to endeavour to recover anything that was given to her to which she was not entitled. The Ministry admit that she received separation allowance, and pension allowance for herself and child, and now you say that she is not entitled to it now that she is a widow. How is the Ministry going to solve the problem that a woman can receive a pension allowance as a wife, and a pension allowance for her child, but as soon as her pensioned husband dies the Ministry say: "You are not a widow. You are not entitled to any pension as a widow." That is the absurd position in which the Ministry has placed itself. The right hon. Gentleman may have some reply, but it will take a great deal of Scotch logic on the part of the Minister of Pensions to solve this problem. It is because I have been endeavouring to get justice for this woman, because on the facts as I have them she is suffering injustice, that I have taken up this case. Every Member will agree that we always receive courtesy and consideration, not only from the Minister of Pensions and the Parliamentary Secretary, hut from everyone of his officials, but it is because I have not been satisfied with the replies
to my letters or the answer to my question in the House, and because I believe in the documents which I have seen, the woman's marriage certificate and the discharge certificate, that she is suffering injustice that I have raised this question on the Adjournment.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Major Tryon): The House will agree that we have nothing to complain of about the manner in which the question has been raised. The hon Member for Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) was so,courteous as to begin by saying that he has given no notice whatever that he intended to raise this question, and, naturally, I have not got the whole of the official files, and I thank him for pointing that out.. With regard to the first case to which he referred, Midmore had board as recently as last.February, and so far from it being the case, as the hon. Member suggested that the pension was knocked off, he is in receipt of a pension as a result of the last medical board, but as we are all anxious to get justice done, he can—and I hope he will—if he is worse as a result of anything due to the War, appeal to the local committee, and if he is really disabled to a greater extent than is appropriate to the payment now made to him he would get the appropriate payment. What. we are debarred from doing is to pay or compensate for disability not. due to the War. Nobody would urge that we should undertake as a nation to compensate for all time for all injuries occurring after the War which are not due to the War.

Mr. AMMON: What I did put was the difficulty of being quite sure, and that when there is a doubt the man ought to have the benefit of that doubt.

Major TRYON: It is the wish of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions, if there is any doubt that it should be resolved in favour of the man, but there must come a point beyond which one cannot go, and in that case the intention of this House and the law of the land are that the man should appeal to an independent tribunal which should decide whether the man is right or wrong. In this particular case the independent tribunal, instituted not by us, but by this House, to try this particular case brought up by the hon. Mem-
ber, has not decided that the Ministry were wrong. If it had been wrong, he would have had a case against us, but the tribunal has decided that it was right, and it is somewhat remarkable that under those circumstances we should be attacked on this question on the Motion for the adjournment. I repeat, however, that this man has only got to go to the local committee or get someone to put forward a claim for him, and, if he is worse owing to his wounds, he will get a higher rate of pension appropriate to his disablement clue to the War. When my hon. Friend spoke of his terrible wounds—and no one wants to minimise the effect of any wound whether great or small--I would say that the actual finding of the medical board was that the disablement was less than 20 per cent., so that my hon. Friend is simply prejudicing the case. Whatever his wound is, however great or small, he ought to get the right amount; and if he is worse, we will gladly see that he gets the amount that he ought to have.
The case of Alsopp, which has been brought. forward, is one on which I have replied in the House. It is not correct, as was suggested by my hon. Friend, quite innocently, that the widow's case has been decided by us against her. The widow's case has not been decided at. all. The grounds of entitlement are somewhat wider than in the case of a man and it is a rather technical point, but it has not been decided against. her. Her claim is going forward. If she is entitled to a certain allowance or claim against the Government. it, will go forward and she will get it.

Mr. AMMON: Do I understand that the case is actually being considered?

Major TRYON: Certainly. The hon. Member is bringing it forward under somewhat of a misapprehension. It has not been decided against her it. is still open, and so far as I am concerned I shall be glad if it goes in her favour. The hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) put forward the case of the man Munro. He has brought up many cases—

Mr. MACLEAN: I prefer fighting them out here to trusting to correspondence.

Major TRYON: And some of them have been satisfactorily decided. All we are doing in the case of Munro is administering the law. This case was decided, in principle, before the Ministry existed at all. The principle of the 1914 Warrant was simply this. It decided the point of what constituted a widow for pension purposes. It laid down that in order to have the rights of a. widow a woman must have been legally married to a non-commissioned officer or man before the disease or wound or injury was contracted. That principle has been confirmed in the new Warrant we are working under. That is why, in this particular case, she. does not get the widow's allowance. It is true that there has been one case, where the Ministry has made some mistake, brought forward this evening, but it is a mistake where we paid, not too little, but too much. We paid the allowance as if the person in question had rights as a pensioner, which, as a matter of fact., was an error.

Mr. MACLEAN: I suite follow that point, but there is this to be said, and it should be borne in mind. This soldier, even if he received his disability before. he was married, had sufficiently recovered from it to go back to duty before his final discharge. He worked in the Army for six months before his final discharge. May we not take it, therefore, that his further service of six months in the Army might have so aggravated his disability as to make it necessary that he should be discharged, and that certainly his widow is entitled to some compensation on those grounds?

Major TRYON: I quite understand the hon. Member's point. As a fact, that is not the point of this particular case. In this case Mr. Munro was removed from duty for bronchitis and asthma on 22nd November, 1914, and was also removed on other occasions prior to his marriage in July, 1915. He was discharged from service on 28th January, 1916, suffering from chronic bronchitis and spasmodic asthma. The hon. Member very naturally found it difficult to appreciate how this widow could not have been regarded as a widow for pension purposes and yet could have received allowances as a wife. A soldier at any time, when he is married, would naturally be counted as married for separation allowance pur-
poses, and his wife would receive the allowance, but for a widow to be regarded as a widow for pension purposes it is necessary that she should have been married to the man before the receipt of the wound or injury, or before the disease was contracted by her husband. That is the law laid down by the House. We are not working in any way against these pensioners. We are anxious to give every benefit that is due in every case. We are carrying out the law of the land, and the only error that has been exposed in this Debate is that we granted in the case of Munro allowances to the wife and children which, technically, it was not within our power or within the law that we should pay.

Mr. MALONE: The Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs closured the Debate on the very important Turkish question, when he must have seen that a number of other Members wished to speak. I shall not now make the speech I should have made. I shall confine myself to putting to the Government certain questions. Had there been time., I would have liked to have followed the hon. Member for the Scotland Division (Mr. O'Connor) in his peregrination from a hardened Nationalist in Ireland to a violent. Pro-Ulsterman in Smyrna. The Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs would do far better if he accepted the advice of hon. Members like the hon. and gallant Member for the Wrekin Division (Sir C. Townshend) in dealing with these foreign nations, which they are more fitted by experience to know about than are hon. Members of the Government. Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that had he adopted my advice in regard to Russia three years ago—that policy has now become the policy of the Prime Minister—thousands of lives and millions of pounds would have been saved.
The two questions I wish to ask I do not expect the Government will or dare answer. The country is anxious to know why the Government has adopted a violent Græcophile policy. A second question is: Who supplied the money to the Coalition Government to buy the "Daily Chronicle" newspaper? What has been the influence on the Government and what consultations have taken place between Members of the Government and Sir Basil Zaharoff?

It being Eleven. of the Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

DISBANDED TROOPS, IRELAND.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Colonel Leslie Wilson.]

Colonel ASHLEY: This afternoon at Question Time I asked the Secretary of State for War whether he could see his way to extend to the married noncommissioned officers and men of the Irish regiments, which are being disbanded or are about to be disbanded, the same treatment as regards separation allowances as is being given to the disbanded members of the Royal Irish Constabulary. In the case of the Royal Irish Constabulary where it is supposed the men would be in danger to life or limb, if they went to their homes and lived there, a separation allowance of 15s. a week has been granted as a temporary measure to enable them to keep out of disturbed areas in Ireland, until eventually they can safely rejoin their families. If the Government thought it was right—and I entirely agree with them—that the Royal Irish Constabulary, who have been in Ireland for so many years, should be treated in this way on disbandment, then they should give similar treatment to the men of the Irish regiments who are being compulsorily discharged whether they wish it or not. There is no conscription in Ireland and these men came voluntarily to fight for this country overseas and indeed in Ireland also. At least they should have meted out to them the same treatment as the Royal Irish Constabulary. After all, in the eyes of those in Ireland who hate this country and who are doing their best to harm this country, an Irishman who joins His Majesty's Army is just as much a traitor to the cause of Irish nationality as one who joined the Royal Irish Constabulary. In my opinion, there is not the slightest difference between the one and the other.
What was the answer given by the right hon. Gentleman? In the first place, he said: "The Government are treating
these men very generously and giving them a large bonus in order that they might start life again, and we think we have done all that is reasonably necessary to acquit the nation of any obligation which may fall upon it to look after these men." The right hon. Gentleman entirely missed the point of the question. It is true there is a bonus given, whether generous or not I have not inquired, because it is entirely outside the scope of this question. The bonus is given to The man, whether he resides in London, or Edinburgh, or Dublin, or Cork, and it has nothing to do with danger to life and limb after he is discharged. It is a present given to him by the Government, because he has been compulsorily turned out of the profession in which he engaged to serve for a certain number of years, and therefore, to say that a bonus has been given him entirely misses the point. I want money given to them because they are Irishmen, because of the dangerous conditions in their home towns, and I want it given to them so that they should not be financial losers by their loyalty to this country. What was the next point? "Oh, well," he said, "besides that, they can apply to the Committee, presided over by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare)." At once the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Chelsea got up and pointed out that these men are entirely outside the Terms of Reference of his Committee, and since that time T have got into communication with the Secretary of that Committee, who entirely agrees with the hon. and gallant Member for Chelsea. its Chairman, that these men are outside the Terms of Reference of the Committee, and that any of these discharged soldiers who applied to them would be ruled out, not because they do not sympathise with them, but because, by their Terms of Reference, they are not allowed to give them any money. Besides, even if they were allowed, they have only £10,000, and what is £10,000 to all these men, taken along with those with whom the Committee is already dealing?
The real reason why the Government say they are going to do nothing was stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in answer to a supplementary question this afternoon. He said, in one sentence, "We do not believe that these discharged
soldiers, non-commissioned officers and men, when they go home to Ireland, will be in any danger at all." Really, the Members of the Government must either never read the newspapers and never have any reports from their agents in Ireland, or they must be deliberately shutting their eyes to the facts. So long as two years ago, when things were not half so had in Ireland, and 1 had a good deal to do with an ex-service men's organisation called the Comrades of the Great War, I could name scores of ex-service men who were murdered in Ireland, simply because they were ex-service men and had served His Majesty in the Army and in the Navy. If those conditions prevailed two years ago, what must be the conditions now? Does the Secretary of State for War read the Irish newspapers? If he did, he would see every day that two or three ex-service men had been murdered in Ireland, and is it seriously contended that a great number of these ex-service men scattered throughout Southern Ireland are not in great danger of their lives? I think it would be inexpressibly mean of this nation, through this House or this Government, either because it is weary of trying to govern Ireland, or because it thinks another line of policy would be more successful if it should behave in a mean financial way to those who served it with their lives. If we are going to do these things in Ireland, let us generously recompense out of our own pockets those who stood by us.

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: This matter was raised by me some weeks ago in connection with the kidnapping and, I believe, murder of three officers in the neighbourhood of Macroom. I raised the question then of the postponement of the disbandment of the Irish regiments in order to avoid the dange7 then being incurred by those men who wished to go home to Ireland. After the reply had been made that the postponement could not be considered, I then put a question clown as to whether provision would be made for such men as could not go to their homes in Ireland in consequence of the danger incurred by them in doing so. The reply I got was this:
These men, unless maintained in the Army by transfer, will receive the same benefits as those provided by Army Order 180 for other men compulsorily discharged.
I do invite the attention of the House to the absolutely unsatisfactory nature of that portion of the reply. Here I asked a question about men who could not go to their homes on account of danger, and I got a reply which refers to men who could safely go to their homes, for example, in London. The reply went on to say:
If any of them are unable to return to their homes in Ireland, their cases could be brought before the Committee presided over by the hon. and gallant Member for Chelsea.
That has already been dealt. with by the hon. and gallant Member for the Fylde Division (Lieut.-Colonel Ashley), and I think it is really unnecessary for me to say more about it than that it is equally as absurd as the first part of the answer —equally unsatisfactory.
With regard to the case of the officers, really the officers are in far more danger, in my opinion, than are the men. There have been many cases of officers returning from the Army to Ireland to live in their homes, who have been murdered or driven out of them, not to mention the kidnapping of these three young officers the other day—an illustration of the danger incurred by officers who go home to Ireland. The hon. and gallant Member referred to the answer which was given to me as being unsatisfactory. I go further, and say it was contemptible.

Field-Marshal Sir H. WILSON: May I. also plead for these men and officers of the South and West Irish Regiments who have been disbanded? I think it is safe to say that. if these men, or most of them, go home to their little farms or businesses in the South and West they will be in real danger of their lives. It. is only fair that these men should have exceptional treatment., and in such a measure that they may be able to live in safety in some other country. The hon. and gallant Gentleman who opened this discussion suggested that they should get the same rights as men of the Royal Irish Constabulary. That is a matter with which I am not competent to deal, but I do think that they should get some exceptional treatment and different from those, men of English battalions which have been disbanded, and who can go to their homes in safety. I have to-night been at the annual dinner of my regiment, the Rifle Brigade. The
third and fourth battalions have been disbanded. I am colonel-commanding of the 3rd Battalion. The men of these two battalions can, broadly speaking, go to their homes, hard as their lot is, and lire in peace and comfort. I was originally in the 18th Royal Irish Regiment. The men of that regiment cannot go to their homes. They dare not, because they will be in danger, not only of their lives, but for the lives of their wives and families. If the Government insist in treating these men of the South and West of Ireland regiments in the same way as they have treated the British battalions that are being disbanded, then I think the Government are totally unable to understand the conditions which are now existing in Ireland. I suggest once again, as I have suggested on several occasions, that the Secretary of State for War, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, or the other Cabinet Ministers who are responsible for the present state of affairs in Ireland should, before they rule out. these poor men for exceptional treatment, go over to Ireland themselves and see the state of things which exists in that country.

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington - Evans): The ease has been put as to why we are not dealing with the officers and men of the Irish regiments, who arc being disbanded, in the same way as the officers and men of the Royal Irish Constabulary. First of all, I want to deal with the question of why we are differentiating between the two. The Royal Trish Constabulary have been employed locally in Ireland, have been stationed in villages and towns in the country districts, where their activities have brought them into conflict with the local inhabitants. Undoubtedly, many of them are marked men. It is impossible in some cases that they should go back to their homes. The officers and men of the Irish regiments have not been employed locally in Ireland at all, but all over the world, some in India, some on the Rhine, and some in England. They have not been, by reason of their duties, brought into conflict with the local inhabitants. They are not in the same category as the Royal Irish Constabulary. I admit at once that there may be cases where individuals are unable to go home. If there are such cases, I believe they are the exception rather
than the rule. I am not suggesting that Ireland is a health resort. I am not suggesting that everywhere peace reigns, and that life is so secure that there is no risk to anybody. What I am suggesting is that the men of the Irish regiments going home are not in the same position as the Royal Irish Constabulary. As a matter of fact a great many of them have been on leave prior to disbandment and, so far as I know, there has been no case of an officer or man of the Irish regiments in course of disbandment who has suffered while taking his 28 days' leave in Ireland. There have been, I should think, something like 2,000 who have been on leave during the last month and I do not know a single case in which any one of them has had anything befall him. The provisions which have been made for those who are disbanded are, I believe, reasonably liberal. If the finances of the country were different I should like more to be done, but they are reasonably liberal and I think the House ought to bear in mind what is being done.
I will take the case of a private with a wife and two children. He gets the equivalent of £12 4s. during his first 28 days leave. He then gets whatever bounty he is entitled to on completion of his engagement and, in addition, lie gets, if he had less than three months unexpired —that is, if his contract of service has terminated within three months of the ordinary time, if his regiment had not been disbanded—a bonus of £8. If there is more than three months but less than six months, he gets an additional bonus of £5 I8s. If there is 12 months unexpired he gets another £5 18s., and for every additional year he gets another £5 extra. Take the case of a man with a year to run who has 'been disbanded and whose contract has therefore been broken. He gets about £32 as his bonus. If that is insufficient, if owing to local circumstances he cannot still live in Ireland—I believe that this is the exception rather than the rule—such exceptional cases can come before the Committee presided over by the hon. and gallant Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare). I know my hon. and gallant Friend does not agree, but I will read the reference. The reference to the Committee is:
To investigate applications by or on behalf of persons ordinarily resident in Ireland who for reasons of personal safety
cannot continue to reside in Ireland and have come to Great Britain and are represented to be in urgent need of assistance.
If the first assistance granted a man, namely, about £30, or less it may be if his contract has a smaller period than one year to run, is insufficient, if he cannot for reasons of personal safety continue to reside in Ireland, he may then come before this Committee and make application for assistance on the ground of urgent necessity.

Colonel ASHLEY: My point is that he will be dead before he discovers whether he is safe or not. I want to prevent him going back to be murdered. You say let him go back and if he is in danger of being murdered he can come away again.

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I did not say that. I will do my best to see that if there are such cases they can come before the Committee. If it is a proper, genuine case, duly authenticated, the man should not he precluded from making a claim. I repeat, the terms of reference are:
To investigate applications by or on behalf of persons ordinarily resident in Ireland "—
We are only considering the cases of men ordinarily resident in Ireland.
who for reasons of personal safety have come to Great Britain.
If that be the proper construction I will certainly make representations to the Committee and see that the terms are sufficiently widened to include those who fear they cannot go back to Ireland with safety and therefore have to remain in this country. I am sure there is no intention on the part of the Government to take advantage of a slip of drafting of that sort. Let me try to summarise the position. I can assure hon. Members, who will give us credit for desiring to do what is fair in very difficult circumstances, that there are fairly liberal terms granted in the first instance to those whose contracts of service are broken. It is quite recognised that this may not be sufficient in every case, but these cases, I believe, are exceptional. The experience we have had up to the present is what has happened during the leave period, and that has been the worst period, because there is no question that the last month in Ireland has been a worse period than
any previous month. If it has not happened during that month, there is some hope that it will not happen at another time; but if there should be such a case, in which the amount already given is not sufficient, then in such an exceptional case I think that this Committee is the best way to deal with it. We cannot deal with it simply by a rule. It cannot be suggested that in every case in which an Irish regiment is disbanded—and, there are, I suppose, some 5,000 or 6,000 men who will be leaving the Service—it is not suggested that in every such case a grant should be made. It is only suggested that it should be made in cases where the men cannot go back. That is the individual case to be investigated. What better machinery can you have for investigating that class of case than the very Committee which is doing it in the ease of civilians and others?
I believe the proper way of dealing with it is to let that Committee do so, and if the words "who have come back to Great Britain" prevent them from dealing with the case of a man who is not able to go back to Ireland because of reasonable fear of what would happen if he did, I will do my best to see that the words are enlarged.

Mr. W. SMITH: Does this apply to men of other regiments, some of whom may be Irishmen?

Sir L. WORTH INGTON-EVANS: Yes, the reference to the Committee does not depend upon what regiment a man belongs to; it depends upon whether he can or cannot go back to Ireland.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-nine minutes after Eleven o'Clock.